Black holes not only existed at the beginning of time, they gave birth to new stars and formed charged galaxies.
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This is evidenced by the results of an analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope, carried out by scientists from Johns Hopkins University (USA), the university’s press service reports.
This insight overturns theories about how black holes shape the cosmos, challenging the classical view that they formed after the first stars and galaxies appeared, the paper notes. “However, black holes may have dramatically accelerated the birth of new stars during the first 50 million years of the Universe’s existence, a fleeting period of its 13.8 billion year history.
Scientists were already well aware that giant black holes are located at the center of galaxies near our Milky Way.
But the big surprise now is that they were also present at the beginning of the Universe and were almost like building blocks… for early galaxies, the researchers note.
They’ve really sped things up like giant star formation amplifiers, a complete reversal of what we thought was possible before – so much so that it could completely upend our understanding of how galaxies form, the scientists note.
Conventional wisdom holds that black holes formed after the collapse of supermassive stars and that galaxies formed after the first stars illuminated the dark early Universe.
However, some galaxies from the earliest universe observed by James Webb are much brighter than scientists had expected, and reveal extremely large numbers of young stars and supermassive black holes.
Thus, the analysis carried out by scientists shows that black holes and galaxies coexisted and influenced each other’s fate during the first 100 million years.
If the entire history of the Universe were a 12-month calendar, these years would be like the first days of January, scientists note.
According to scientists, the explanation is that the influence of black holes crushed gas clouds in the early Universe, turning them into stars and significantly accelerating the rate of star formation.
Otherwise, it is very difficult to understand where these bright galaxies come from, because in the early Universe they are usually smaller in size. Why on earth should they form stars so quickly? – the researchers note.
Black holes are regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape its pull, not even light. Thanks to this force, they generate powerful magnetic fields that create violent storms, eject turbulent plasma, and finally act as huge particle accelerators.
This process is likely why James Webb’s detectors discovered more of these black holes and bright galaxies than scientists expected, scientists say.
We can’t see these turbulent winds or jets at very far distances, but we know they must be present because we see many black holes in the early stages of the universe, the scientists note. “These huge winds coming from black holes crush nearby gas clouds and turn them into stars. This is the missing link that explains why these first galaxies are so much brighter than we expected.
According to researchers, the young Universe had two phases:
- during the first, high-speed flows from black holes accelerated the formation of stars;
- subsequently, in the second phase, the flows slowed down.
A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, gas clouds collapsed due to the magnetic storms of supermassive black holes, and new stars were born at a rate that far exceeds the rate observed billions of years later in normal galaxies, the paper notes.
According to scientists, further star formation slowed because these powerful leaks entered a state of energy conservation, reducing the amount of gas available for star formation in galaxies.
We believed that galaxies first formed during the collapse of a giant gas cloud, scientists note. “The big surprise was that inside this cloud there were “seeds” – a large black hole that helped quickly turn the interior of the cloud into stars at a rate much greater than we ever expected. That’s why the first galaxies are incredibly bright.
The first photograph of a black hole was presented by a collaboration of scientists (VIDEO)
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.