A startling discovery in the early universe reveals a new truth about black holes.

once again Hubble Space Telescope He knows how to surprise us and present to humanity an exciting discovery. The gods have already been found. Black holes in the early universe. Not a complete surprise, of course, but there are far more of them than one would have expected. Here are all the details and possible implications.

What is the primordial universe?

Perhaps it is better to take a step back, and emphasize how our universe expanded and cooled after the event that everyone knows about: Big BangThis dual process ensured that matter reached the state we know today, effectively reorganizing itself. From the first galaxies and stars dating back a few hundred thousand years after the “Big Bang,” to the warming that took another billion years. This led to a new ionization of hydrogen.

Here is a very brief summary of a gigantic process, full of mysteries, that continues to fascinate us because, in fact, we cannot look forward until we understand what came before us. When We are talking about the primordial universe.Therefore, this stage, with all its long evolution, is specifically referred to. In a reality composed mainly of gas, stars and clusters are formed separately from the clouds, giving Origin of the first galaxiesAll of this, as we mentioned, is still the focus of many studies today, one of which focuses on the existence of black holes.

Discovery in the early universe

It was obtained thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Important evidence regarding the early universeWe know there are more black holes than we previously thought. In fact, new images have arrived, many years after the first landmark image, which dates back to 2004.

All thanks to the telescope’s ultra-deep field, i.e.Hubble Ultra Deep FieldThe depths of the universe are only apparently dark and empty. In fact, they contain about 10,000 galaxies in the constellation Fornax, below Orion.

Pointing infrared light in this direction allowed an international research team, led by the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University, to detect variations in the brightness of galaxies – a clear sign of the presence of black holes.

Comparison with images produced in 2009, 2012 and 2013 showed that many more holes were visible than expected. The investigation involved eight things.Specifically, three supernovae, one active galactic nucleus, and three potential AGN (active galactic nuclei) candidates. The initial results are described in a new study published in Astrophysical Journal Letterswhich provided the first measurement of Number of supermassive black holes In the primordial universe.

Here’s what the authors wrote: “We estimate the population density of supermassive black holes to be approximately ≳ 8 × 10−3 cMpc−3, the largest value ever reported at high redshifts. This abundance is also surprisingly similar to that in the local Universe.

All of this is part of a very interesting and mysterious topic. Suffice it to say that, as of yet, we do not have a complete and comprehensive picture of how the first black holes formed shortly after the Big Bang.

Here are the lyrics PhD student Alice YoungFrom Stockholm University and co-author of the study: “Many of these objects appear to be more massive than we originally thought they might have been at such distant times. One hypothesis is that they were already very massive at the time of their formation, or that they underwent a very rapid growth process.”

What the new results suggest is that some black holes likely formed after the collapse of massive, pristine stars, all within the first billion years after the Big Bang.

These types of stars only existed in the early days of our universe. This is because later generations of stars were polluted by the remains of those who lived and died. The parallel alternative involves collapsing gas clouds, stars merging into massive clusters and primordial black holes that formed in the first seconds after the Big Bang.