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Astronomers have discovered six galaxies trapped in the cosmic “cobweb” of a supermassive black hole shortly after the Big Bang, according to research published Thursday that could help explain the development of these enigmatic monsters.
Black holes that emerged early in the history of the Universe are believed to have formed from the collapse of the first stars, but astronomers have wondered how they expanded to become giants.
The newly discovered black hole, which dates from when the Universe was not even a billion years old, weighs a billion times the mass of our Sun and was detected by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
The scientists said the finding helps provide an explanation for how supermassive black holes like the one at the center of our Milky Way may have developed.
This is because astronomers believe that the filaments that trap the galaxy cluster carry enough gas to “feed” the black hole, allowing it to grow.
“The filaments of the cosmic cobweb are like spider web threads,” said Marco Mignoli, an astronomer at the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Bologna, who led the research, which was published in the journal. Astronomy and Astrophysics.
“Galaxies stop and grow where the filaments intersect, and streams of gas, available to power both the galaxies and the central supermassive black hole, can flow along the filaments.”
Mignoli said that until now there was “no good explanation” for the existence of such large early black holes.
The location of the quasar (red circle) in the constellation Sextans. (ESO / IAU Sky & Telescope)
The tip of the iceberg
The researchers said that the lattice structure may have formed with the help of dark matter, which is believed to attract large amounts of gas in the early Universe.
“Our finding supports the idea that the most distant and massive black holes form and grow within massive dark matter halos in large-scale structures, and that the absence of earlier detections of such structures was likely due to observational limitations.” said co-author Colin Norman of Johns Hopkins University.
The entire network is more than 300 times the size of the Milky Way, according to an ESO statement.
But he said the galaxies are also some of the fainter that current telescopes can detect, adding that the discovery was only possible using the largest optical telescopes available, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
“We think we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg, and that the few galaxies discovered so far around this supermassive black hole are only the brightest,” said co-author Barbara Balmaverde, an astronomer at the INAF in Torino, Italy.
The research is the latest to attempt to illuminate the mysterious formation of these cosmic monsters, which are so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull.
In September, two consortia of about 1,500 scientists reported the discovery of GW190521, formed by the collision of two smaller black holes.
What the scientists observed were gravitational waves produced more than seven billion years ago when they collided together, releasing eight solar masses of energy and creating one of the most powerful events in the Universe since the Big Bang.
At 142 solar masses, GW190521 was the first “intermediate mass” black hole ever observed.
The scientists said the finding challenges current theories about the formation of supermassive black holes, suggesting it could be through the repeated merger of these medium-sized bodies.
© Agence France-Presse
