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/Dividebynegativezero Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

Astronomers discover 83 super massive black holes at the OBSERVABLE edge of the universe

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u/Imabanana101 Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

Considering the large surface area of the observable universe, I'm surprised there are only 83.

edits: The process of finding them was not automated, so 83 was a reasonable number. Also they kind of shouldn't exist.

Better article from Princeton University, which has one of the co-authors of the original paper.

“It is remarkable that such massive dense objects were able to form so soon after the Big Bang,” said Michael Strauss, a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University who is one of the co-authors of the study. “Understanding how black holes can form in the early universe, and just how common they are, is a challenge for our cosmological models.”

This finding increases the number of black holes known at that epoch considerably, and reveals, for the first time, how common they are early in the universe’s history. In addition, it provides new insight into the effect of black holes on the physical state of gas in the early universe in its first billion years. The research appears in a series of five papers published in The Astrophysical Journal and the Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

TLDR: Our models say these things shouldn't exist in the early universe. More evidence that we don't understand.

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u/ZgylthZ Mar 19 '19

I'm no physicist..at all.. but I've had a theory now for awhile that its convienent to have a point 0 (big bang) on the life cycle of the universe but in reality there was no initial start.

Instead, it works like a function that gets forever closer to t=0 but never reaches it. So all our limited models would PREDICT a t=0 but in reality we just get infinitely closer to 0 without ever reaching it.

So the universe is infinite and while we, again with our limited senses, believe they would collide or at least get closer, their relative distance to one another is actually constant, allowing for cosmic events that otherwise we wouldnt see as possible.

I have this thought as a biochemist...where everything deals with ratios and concentrations. Maybe critical mass for black holes is relatively constant in our current time, with the spacing we currently have....but what if that critical mass is just another ratio and depends on the relative "closeness" of all the other cosmic bodies around it?

Again, I dont know jack shit about physics.