New Study Reveals Fascinating Patterns in the Evolution of the Universe
In a new study, scientists have made remarkable discoveries regarding the evolution of the Universe since the Big Bang approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Their groundbreaking research has been based on data collected from the James Webb Telescope.
The study indicates that throughout the cosmos’ history, ultra-massive black holes and stars have generated roughly equal amounts of energy. These two cosmic “engines” derive their energy from gas, which results in a self-regulation of their growth within galaxies. For instance, stars produce powerful winds and explode as supernovae, expelling the surrounding gas. Similarly, accreting black holes generate winds and radiation, which escape and heat the surrounding gas. Both stars and black holes shed the gas fueling their growth.
Fascinatingly, the growth time of ultra-massive black holes is comparable to the age of the early universe. This implies that during later stages of cosmic history, black hole growth episodes were short-lived, allowing stars to form from cold gas.
However, in the early universe, less than a billion years after the Big Bang, the dynamics were different. Galaxies were gas-rich as most of it had not yet transformed into stars, thereby facilitating black hole growth.
The resulting heating of the surrounding gas was expected to suppress star formation for the majority of time and result in the prevalence of galaxies with ultra-massive black holes relative to the observed ratio between star mass and black hole mass in the present-day universe.
The latest findings confirm that red dispersal galaxies contain ultra-massive black holes that exceed expectations based on the mass of stars in the modern universe. Currently, ultra-massive black holes account for only 0.1