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A remote galaxy might harbor a type of black hole that arises directly from a massive cloud of gas rather than forming after the death of a star. This rare specimen could explain how some galaxies built gargantuan black holes in the first billion years or so after the Big Bang. The galaxy, known as CR7, is unusual (SN: 7/25/2015, p. 8). It blasts out more ultraviolet radiation than other galaxies that lived at the same time, roughly 13 billion years ago (about 800 million years after the Big Bang). The gas in CR7 also appears to lack elements such as carbon and oxygen, which are forged within stars and then ejected into space. One idea is that CR7 is giving birth to first-generation stars, similar to the first stars ever created in the universe. Another hypothesis is that CR7 harbors the first known “direct collapse” black hole, one that forms when a blob of interstellar gas collapses under its own weight without first forming stars.
originally posted by: odzeandennz
is there anything we will eventually not have an answer to?
i find this really peculiar. is there an explanation science can say we dont know and hence cant have a theory... all the way from earth.
im really beginning to believe either its all a simulation or what we perceive is not at all whats actually there.
originally posted by: odzeandennz
is there anything we will eventually not have an answer to?
The black holes that produced the first detected gravitational waves may have exotic origins in the early universe. When the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, glimpsed gravitational waves from two merging black holes, scientists were surprised at how large the black holes were — about 30 times the mass of the sun (SN: 3/5/16, p. 6). Inspired by this unusual finding, two papers published in Physical Review Letters propose that the hefty black holes were born in the universe’s infancy. Unlike run-of-the-mill black holes that form from collapsing stars, such primordial black holes could have formed when dense regions of the very early universe collapsed under their own gravity, some theories suggest. If they exist, primordial black holes could also solve another puzzle: the identity of dark matter, the unknown source of mass in the universe that holds galaxies and galaxy clusters together. Primordial black holes could make up the universe’s missing mass, an idea that counters the more popular theory that dark matter is made up of undetected particles. A Japanese team of astrophysicists reported August 2 that LIGO’s black holes may be primordial, and that, if so, they could make up some portion of the universe’s dark matter. Johns Hopkins University scientists reported May 19 that LIGO’s estimated rate of black hole mergers matches with that expected from primordial black hole dark matter.
Dark matter is a mysterious substance composing most of the material universe, now widely thought to be some form of massive exotic particle. An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence, known as primordial black holes. "This study is an effort to bring together a broad set of ideas and observations to test how well they fit, and the fit is surprisingly good," said Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard. "If this is correct, then all galaxies, including our own, are embedded within a vast sphere of black holes each about 30 times the sun's mass." Kashlinsky suggests that this interpretation aligns with our knowledge of cosmic infrared and X-ray background glows and may explain the unexpectedly high masses of merging black holes detected last year. In 2005, Kashlinsky led a team of astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to explore the background glow of infrared light in one part of the sky. The researchers reported excessive patchiness in the glow and concluded it was likely caused by the aggregate light of the first sources to illuminate the universe more than 13 billion years ago. Follow-up studies confirmed that this cosmic infrared background (CIB) showed similar unexpected structure in other parts of the sky. This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows an infrared view of a sky area in the constellation Ursa Major. After masking out all known stars, galaxies and artifacts and enhancing what's left, an irregular background glow appears. This is the cosmic infrared background (CIB); lighter colors indicate brighter areas.
The CIB glow is more irregular than can be explained by distant unresolved galaxies, and this excess structure is thought to be light emitted when the universe was less than a billion years old. Scientists say it likely originated from the first luminous objects to form in the universe, which includes both the first stars and black holes.
In 2013, another study compared how the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory compared to the CIB in the same area of the sky. The first stars emitted mainly optical and ultraviolet light, which today is stretched into the infrared by the expansion of space, so they should not contribute significantly to the CXB. Yet the irregular glow of low-energy X-rays in the CXB matched the patchiness of the CIB quite well. The only object we know of that can be sufficiently luminous across this wide an energy range is a black hole. The research team concluded that primordial black holes must have been abundant among the earliest stars, making up at least about one out of every five of the sources contributing to the CIB.