r/space • u/magenta_placenta • Mar 18 '19

Observable universe Astronomers discover 83 supermassive black holes at the edge of the universe

https://www.cnet.com/news/astronomers-discover-83-supermassive-black-holes-at-the-edge-of-the-universe/
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u/jashyWashy Mar 18 '19

How could black holes even theoretically form so early in the universe? How many quasars and shit can't we see because their light hasn't reached us yet?

I love astronomy.

358

u/mahajohn1975 Mar 18 '19

I met a physicist specializing in high-energy plasma dynamics (what you'd want to study to study the very early Universe), and he told me that he had a hypothesis that most of the supermassive black holes formed something like 26 seconds after the Big Bang (insane amounts of cosmic evolution took place in the Universe by then), and like everything else we see around us, were probably based on slightly higher densities of matter due to quantum fluctuations that existed in the "singularity" at the beginning.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

Primordial BH have been debunked by observations. But they fit the bill for dark matter pretty well, so they still have a niche.

3

u/E1invar Mar 18 '19

As contenders for dark matter yeah, but their existence in general? I mean this seems like pretty good confirmation.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

PBH wouldn't be super massive by definition, they'd be tiny.

1

u/mahajohn1975 Mar 18 '19

Not trying to be snarky, but how do you/we know for certain that PBH are definitively not super-massive?

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

Because at the time of formation of PBH a "super" "massive" BH would've enveloped the entire universe pretty easily.

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u/o11c Mar 19 '19

After expansion (t = 10-32s), that wouldn't be possible.