A new theoretical study has proposed a natural explanation for how supermassive black holes –once described as “the most perfect macroscopic objects in the universe, the only elements in their construction are our concepts of space and time” –formed in the early Universe. The proposal is the existence of stable galactic cores –made of dark matter surrounded by a diluted dark matter halo –that become so concentrated once a critical threshold is reached that they collapse into supermassive objects.
In 1993 Stephen Hawking proposed in Black Holes and Baby Universes that there might be “primordial black holes which were formed in the early universe that could be less than the size of the nucleus of an atom, yet their mass could be a billion tons, the mass of Mount Fuji. A black hole weighing a billion tons,” Hawking explained, “would have a radius of about 10-13 centimeter (the size of a neutron or a proton). It could be in orbit either around the sun or around the center of the galaxy, emitting hard gamma rays with an energy of about 100 million electron volts.”
“It is undeniable that we are profoundly puzzled, especially when it comes to the first fraction of a second that followed the Big Bang,” wrote theoretical physicist Dan Hooper, author of The Edge of Time in an email to The Daily Galaxy–Great Discoveries Channel. “I have no doubt that these earliest moments hold incredible secrets, but our universe holds its secrets closely. It is up to us to coax those secrets from its grip, transforming them from mystery into discovery.”
Theoretical physicists have described supermassive black holes as the most perfect objects there are in the universe –“the only elements in their construction are our concepts of space and time.” Some have described these cosmic monsters as the “Gates of Hell” and others as “gateways to another universe” and the largest hard disk that exists in nature, in two dimensions.
Hubble astronomers found something extraordinary at the heart of nearby globular cluster NGC 6397 –a concentration of smaller black holes lurking there instead of one monster, supermassive black hole. Ancient stellar jewelry boxes, globular star clusters are densely packed objects, glittering with the light of a million stars in a ball only about 100 light-years across dating back almost to the birth of the Milky Way.
Welcome to this week’s fix of news of space and science –a random journey from Planet Earth through the Cosmos– that has the capacity to provide clues to our existence and add a much needed cosmic perspective in our current epoch. The Galaxy Report is also available here as a twice-weekly newsletter that includes exclusive feature stories.
The Galaxy Report newsletter brings you twice-weekly news of space and science that has the capacity to provide clues to the mystery of our existence and add a much needed cosmic perspective in our current Anthropocene Epoch.
