ILLUSTRATION BY ZHAOYU LI, SHANGHAI ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY
Scientists have discovered a giant black hole that is 12 billion times bigger than our sun. It is indeed an exciting finding by astronomers.
While the black hole recently discovered is not the most humongous, it is still pretty big by normal standards. And it is relatively nascent in its inception. About 875 million years after the start of the universe, it expanded to its current size.
The universe had barely begun its formation back then. It comes as a shocker since most black holes expand in a tortoise-like fashion by absorbing other matter surrounding them. The question that remains before astronomers is how such a big black hole could have been formed in the first place. It is indeed an anomaly.
The huge black hole despite its size cannot be seen since its extreme gravitational force does not allow anything (even light) to escape its grasp. What the scientists did detect was a quasar that became hotter as it entered the jumbo black hole. The quasar was very bright and it emitted light that was 40,000 more luminescent than any other heavenly body in the universe.
It is common knowledge that all the galaxies including our Milky Way have black holes at their cores. The quasar that has been detected is just a tiny dot of light even when seen by telescopes.
Through observation of the quasar’s light scientists have been able to deduct the size of the black hole. In the early phases of the universe, galaxies were much more compact. That was when this black hole got formed.
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However, it still remains a mystery since it is too large to account for its formation by any standards. There is the hypothesis that two or more galaxies coalesced thus forming a joint black hole in the process.
This discovery has set cosmic evolutionary theory on its head. The current explanations have been disproven in the same manner as an ugly truth slaying a beautiful falsehood. The nature and growth of black holes need to be revised after the genesis of this postulate.
Massive suction pools such as this black hole are a law unto themselves. A very special telescope was used to detect the black hole everybody is talking about. With new discoveries in space entities, the existing model of the universe undergoes evaluations and reevaluations. And thus our image of the largest entity known to mankind (the universe) gets transformed with the passage of time.
Sources: Nationa Geographic , Nature
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