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.
The anatomy of an enigma: a team of astronomers using the the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory (LBT) atop Mount Graham in southeastern Arizona collected 17 hours’ worth of light when our universe was just 1.8 billion years old from from the abnormally massive elliptical galaxy dubbed C1-23152 (image above) that defies conventional models of its origins universe was just 1.8 billion years old, less than 13% of the present age. Most elliptical galaxies, such as C1-23152 at the center of a galaxy cluster, take many billions of years to reach their massive sizes. Hence the enduring mystery of how and why these monster objects exist in the early universe.
An international team of astronomers has confirmed the most-distant known galaxy, GN-z11s, a hefty13.4 billion light years away, indicating it was shining just 400 million years or so after the Big Bang, along with a brief ultraviolet flare of a powerful gamma ray burst–a phenomenon never before observed in the extremely early universe–that was detected in data from the Keck 1 telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The astronomers used deep spectroscopic analysis, discovering an unusual higher-than-expected concentrations of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, ruling out a first-generation galaxy.
In the early 1980’s Israeli physicist Mordehai Milgrom from Weizmann Institute proposed a new theory, “the smoking gun” –a new theory of the universe’s structure that offers the most plausible alternative yet to dark matter– that defied the laws of gravity suggesting that galaxies are governed by modified dynamics rather than obeying the laws of Newton and of general relativity. “This theory became known as MOND for modified Newtonian Dynamics, Milgromian Dynamics, or “modified gravity”–a viable explanation for a cosmological dilemma: that galaxies appear to defy the long-accepted rules of gravity traced to Sir Isaac Newton in the late 1600’s. In short, the mathematics of gravity may hint at weirder phenomena than many thought.
Physicists have found that for the last 7 billion years or so — the anticipated halfway point of the lifetime of the cosmos – galactic expansion has been accelerating. Some unknown force is pushing the galaxies, adding energy to them. A force physicist have named “dark energy”.
“Very soon the heavens presented an extraordinary appearance, for all the stars directly behind me were now deep red, while those directly ahead were violet,” is how philosopher and science-fiction author Olaf Stapledon described the phenomena known as “redshift” in his science fiction novel, Star Maker, a history of life in the universe. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding, with most other galaxies moving away from us. Light from these galaxies is shifted to longer (further away and redder) wavelengths – in other words, it is red-shifted, a result of the expansion of the universe.
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.
