NASA experts have made a black hole breakthrough (Image: Getty)
Space experts have uncovered a massive swarm of new supermassive black holes that could blow theories about galaxies wide open.
A team of scientists using data from two telescopes revealed that there are more supermassive in the universe than initially believed.
Black holes are gigantic objects that are sometimes billions of times larger than the Sun.
They are regions where the fabric of spacetime is so deformed by concentrated mass that, beyond their “event horizon”, nothing — not even light — can escape their gravity.
Astronomers have also found that most galaxies also contain “supermassive” black holes at their very centre — staggering concentrations of matter that can contain millions or even billions of times the mass of the Sun.
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It is challenging to prove this theory as counting the billions of this phenomenon is practically impossible.
Experts instead study smaller samples to estimate the true figure. Accurately establishing the number of black holes hidden within a given sample provides better predictions about the total number of supermassive black holes in the universe.
In NASA’s latest survey, experts detected black holes hidden behind thick clouds of gas and dust and others that are not. Their study, published in the Astrophysical Journal, found that around 35% of supermassive black holes are heavily obscured.
NASA experts combined data from two telescopes (Image: Getty)
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This means the surrounding clouds of gas and dust are so thick they block low-energy X-ray light. Previous surveys had only found that under 15% of supermassive black holes are obscured to this extent.
Now, experts believe the real share could be nearer to 50/50 based on models of how galaxies grow. If observations carry on indicating that far under half of supermassive black holes are hidden, it could lead to an explosion of new ideas about the role these objects play in shaping galaxies.
Prof Poshak Gandhi, study co-author and professor of astrophysics at the University of Southampton, said: “If we didn’t have black holes, galaxies would be much larger.
“So if we didn’t have a supermassive black hole in our Milky Way galaxy, there might be many more stars in the sky. That’s just one example of how black holes can influence a galaxy’s evolution.
According to NASA, “One possible mechanism for the formation of supermassive black holes involves a chain reaction of collisions of stars in compact star clusters. [This] results in the buildup of extremely massive stars, which then collapse to form intermediate-mass black holes.
“The star clusters then sink to the centre of the galaxy, where the intermediate-mass black holes merge to form a supermassive black hole.”
While black holes are famous for gobbling up matter from their immediate surroundings, they are also capable, counterintuitively, of being the source of emissions.