[NTD News, Beijing time, February 8, 2024]Traditional theory holds that stars and galaxies first existed in the universe, and then black holes appeared. But a just-published study shows that in the early days of the universe, galaxies and black holes not only coexisted but also influenced each other, completely overturning human understanding of this field.
Johns Hopkins University in the United States pointed out in a press release issued on February 6 that traditional theories maintain that galaxies were formed in the early stages of the universe, and that black holes were formed after the collapse of supermassive stars in galaxies. form.
However, a research team led by Joseph Silk, a professor of astrophysics at the school, used observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope to find that distant galaxies in the early days of the universe seemed brighter than scientists expected. Many, many young stars and black holes.
According to the analysis of the research team, in the first 100 million years of the universe, black holes and galaxies coexisted and influenced each other’s fate. Scientists believe that the universe was created through the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.
Silke said that if the history of the entire universe was measured in 12 months, then these 100 million years would be equivalent to the first few days of January.
Silk said that in the early days of the universe, black holes spawned a large number of stars and prompted the formation of galaxies, which completely overturned scientists’ understanding of how galaxies formed.
A so-called black hole is a region in space where gravity is so strong that anything, including light, is sucked in by it. Because of this power, black holes can generate powerful magnetic fields that generate violent storms that eject surging plasma (also known as plasma) like giant particle accelerators.
Silk said this process may be why the Webb Space Telescope has observed more black holes and bright galaxies than scientists expected.
Silk’s team predicts that the young universe went through two stages. In the first stage, the jet of high-speed particles ejected by the black hole accelerates star formation, while in the second stage, the jet of high-speed particles slows down.
Silke said that in the hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, gas clouds collapsed due to the magnetic storms of supermassive black holes, and the rate of star birth at this time far exceeded the rate of star birth in normal galaxies billions of years later. .
He said the slower rate of star birth is because powerful jets of high-speed particles shift into an energy-conserving state, reducing the amount of gas needed to form stars in the galaxy.
“We think galaxies originally formed when huge clouds of gas collapsed,” he said.
He mentioned that what is surprising is that there are “seeds” in the huge gas clouds, that is, huge black holes, which help the components inside the gas clouds to quickly generate stars at a faster rate than scientists expected, so the first batch of galaxies are extremely bright.
The research team expects that the Webb Space Telescope will be able to observe a more accurate number of stars and black holes in the early universe in the future, which will help confirm their estimates.
Silk hopes these observations will also help scientists piece together more clues about the evolution of the universe, allowing them to find answers to many questions.
The above research results were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
(Reprinted from The Epoch Times/Editor: Ye Ping)
