New insights from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope upend theories of how black holes shape the cosmos, challenging classical understanding that they formed after the first stars and galaxies emerged; instead, black holes might have accelerated the birth of new stars during the first 50 million years of the Universe.
“We know these monster black holes exist at the center of galaxies near our Milky Way, but the big surprise now is that they were present at the beginning of the Universe as well and were almost like building blocks or seeds for early galaxies,” said Professor Joseph Silk, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University and Sorbonne University’s Institut of Astrophysics.
“They really boosted everything, like gigantic amplifiers of star formation, which is a whole turnaround of what we thought possible before — so much so that this could completely shake up our understanding of how galaxies form.”
“Distant galaxies from the very early Universe, observed by Webb, appear much brighter than scientists predicted and reveal unusually high numbers of young stars and supermassive black holes.”
“Conventional wisdom holds that black holes formed after the collapse of supermassive stars and that galaxies formed after the first stars lit up the dark early Universe.”
But the team’s analysis suggests that black holes and galaxies coexisted and influenced each other’s fate during the first 100 million years.
“We’re arguing that black hole outflows crushed gas clouds, turning them into stars and greatly accelerating the rate of star formation,” Professor Silk said.
“Otherwise, it’s very hard to understand where these bright galaxies came from because they’re typically smaller in the early Universe. Why on Earth should they be making stars so rapidly?”
“Black holes are regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape their pull, not even light.”
“Because of this force, they generate powerful…
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