There might be far more supermassive black holes hiding around us than we thought, scientists warn
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The universe could be home to far more supermassive black holes than we realised, according to new research. Many of them are hidden beyond our view, the researchers suggest – which might mean that we have dramatically undercounted how many swirling voids are present in our cosmos.
Astronomers from the University of Southampton say that 35% of these galactic giants - some which are billions of times heavier than the sun - have gone undiscovered because they are obscured by thick clouds of gas and dust. This number had previously been estimated to be about 15%.
Professor Poshak Gandhi, co-author of the study published in the Astrophysical Journal, said: “Black holes are the most mysterious objects in the universe and are present everywhere - yet we still don’t fully know how they evolve. “We’ve found that many more are lurking in plain sight - hiding behind dust and gas rendering them invisible to normal telescopes.
“This is the first time we have a highly refined census of black holes growing by consuming interstellar material surrounding them.”. He added: “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.”. The team of scientists used data taken from Nasa’s InfraRed Astronomy Satellite and the X-ray space telescope NuSTAR to analyse infrared emissions from clouds surrounding supermassive black holes.
