The find — made by the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (ALMA)-- could help astronomers understand how
early galaxies grew into the ones we observe today.
But how did
the earliest galaxies grow when there weren't nearly as many stars to swallow?
Not exact matches
OBESE black holes, not stars, may have lit up the first
galaxies — and could have
grown into the
earliest supermassive black holes.
In the
early universe, astronomers believe, dark matter provided the gravitational scaffolding on which ordinary matter coalesced and
grew into
galaxies.
The
galaxies in the
early universe started off small and the theory of the astronomers is that the baby
galaxies gradually
grew larger and more massive by constantly colliding with neighbouring
galaxies to form new, larger
galaxies.
Because they
grew up in relative isolation, the lonely
galaxies within voids are a perfect test case for astronomers curious about how
galaxies change over time, and what the
earliest, primordial
galaxies were like.
In the
early universe,
galaxies collided relatively often and their black holes sometimes merged,
growing more massive in the process and sometimes birthing hugely energetic objects known as quasars.
The match between the masses of
galaxies» central «bulges» and the sizes of their black holes suggests they
grew together in the
early universe.
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK — Many astronomers believe that black holes at the hearts of
galaxies grew into hulking monsters as
galaxies coalesced around them in the
early universe.
«What our observations of
galaxies in the
early universe tells us is these very
early young
galaxies at the dawn of the universe and their
growing baby black holes already had some deep fundamental connection between them,» Schawinski said.
Moreover,
earlier galaxy surveys suggested that superclusters do not
grow larger on ever grander scales, but top out at some maximum size and mass.
The
early universe was a featureless soup of hot plasma that somehow
grew into the dense
galaxy clusters and cosmic voids we know today.
Several ground - based microwave telescopes, such as the South Pole Telescope, are tracking how the structure of very distant
galaxy clusters
grew in the
early Universe under the influence of gravity.
Today's supercomputers already crudely model the
early universe, simulating how infant
galaxies grew and changed.
According to the standard cosmological model, which predicts how the universe has
grown and changed since its
earliest days, the universe is filled with enormous strands of dark matter, and the
galaxies are embedded in this so - called cosmic web.
A still -
growing core of a
galaxy in the
early universe may help astronomers understand how massive elliptical
galaxies get their start.
However, in the smaller,
early universe, some
growing black holes and nearby stars might have merged before the heavens were stretched out leaving extremely large MBHs in small
galaxies.46
The idea goes like this:
Early in the universe's history, large
galaxies grew out of collisions and mergers of smaller
galaxies.
Several popular theories posit that the first black holes gorged themselves on gas clouds and dust in the
early universe,
growing into the supersized black holes that lurk in the centers of
galaxies today.
How did the first supermassive black holes
grow alongside their host
galaxies in the
early universe?
Supermassive black holes lurking in the hearts of countless
galaxies are
growing faster than astronomers suspected based on
earlier studies.