Scientists have just solved a long-standing puzzle concerning ancient supermassive black holes and the galaxies they inhabit by observing very luminous objects that existed 500 to 1 billion years after the Big Bang
Nothing
can escape the gravitational attraction of a black hole, not even light. Black
holes of all sizes and ages have unresolved mysteries, but the supermassive
black holes that existed in the early universe are particularly perplexing.
For
instance, it is unknown how these huge objects, some of which reached masses
one billion times that of the Sun, were so enormous so early in the history of
the universe. Furthermore, scientists have long wondered what prevented those
first growth bursts and pushed supermassive black holes towards a more
symbiotic evolution with their host galaxies.
Researchers
for Italy's National Institute of Astrophysics, led by Manuela Bschett, a
postdoctoral researcher at the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste, have now
discovered the surprising revelation that extraordinarily potent winds from
early supermassive black holes likely hindered their expansion.
According to research published in Nature, Bschett and her colleagues identified 30 quasars as the final stage of "black hole feedback," a process crucial to the formation of modern galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Quasars are extremely bright objects that are frequently found at the centers of nearby galaxies.
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