Astronomers have detected two active black holes merging at a distance never seen before – 900 million years after the Big Bang.
This is the first time that two luminous supermassive black holes have been detected during the cosmic dawn.
Cosmic dawn is the time covering the first billion years of the universe. During this period, about 400 million years after the Big Bang, the era of reionization began, in which light from new stars stripped hydrogen of their electrons, leading to a fundamental remodeling of galaxy structures.
“The existence of merging quasars in the era of reionization has long been expected.” Lead author of the study Yoshiki MatsuokaAstronomer at Ehime University in Japan. said in a statement. “This has now been confirmed for the first time.”
The researchers published their findings on April 5 Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Black holes are born from the collapse of giant stars and grow by relentlessly absorbing gas, dust, stars, and other black holes in the star-forming galaxies that contain them. When they grow large enough, friction heats up the material swirling in the black hole’s dough, and they become quasars — ejecting their gaseous cocoons with bursts of light a trillion times more luminous than bright stars.
Related: ‘Physics hides itself’: How theoretical physicist Thomas Herdag helped Stephen Hawking develop his final, most radical theory
As light travels at a constant speed through the vacuum of space, scientists look deeper into the universe and intercept light at greater distances. And back in time They see.
Past simulations of cosmic dawns have suggested that clouds of cold gas might blow away merged into giant stars They rapidly collapse to form black holes. As the universe grew, those first black holes could have quickly merged with others and seeded supermassive black holes throughout the universe.
Approximately 300 quasars were previously discovered during the era of reionization, but this recently discovered quasar is the first of a pair. Researchers discovered them using the Subaru Telescope’s HyperSupreme-Cam, in which they appeared as two faint red blobs against a bright background of galaxies and stars.
Astronomers then followed up with spectroscopic imaging and confirmed that the light source was a pair of spiral quasars.
The researchers say their discovery will help them understand how the quasars’ powerful beams of light carved the structures of the universe we see today.
“The statistical properties of quasars in the reionization epoch tell us many things, such as the progress and origin of reionization, the formation of supermassive black holes during the cosmic dawn, and the early evolution of quasar host galaxies,” Matsuoka said.
