Scientists have discovered black holes that are 1,000 times larger than expected, and they are puzzled by the reason behind this phenomenon (photo).

With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies from the early universe, which possess a mass that is disproportionately large compared to that of their host galaxies. Currently, there is no definitive explanation for this phenomenon. The study has been published on the preprint server arXiv, as reported by Live Science.

In the contemporary universe, supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies typically have a mass of about 0.01% of their host galaxies' mass, which includes the mass of all stars. However, calculations by astronomers indicate that the supermassive black holes found in the galaxies identified by the Webb telescope from the early universe have a mass approximately equal to 10% of their galaxies' mass. This is a significantly high ratio, implying that these black holes are around 1000 times more massive than expected.

This discovery further corroborates other observations suggesting that supermassive black holes in the early universe somehow managed to grow to substantial sizes much more rapidly than current models predict. Notably, the Webb telescope detected black holes that are millions of times more massive than the Sun within 1 billion years after the Big Bang. However, existing models indicate that black holes would require over 1 billion years to accumulate such mass.

The black holes that are the focus of this new study are located in the centers of galaxies that astronomers have referred to as "little red dots." This is how these galaxies appear in images captured by the Webb telescope. These galaxies existed about 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, while the universe itself emerged 13.8 billion years ago. This suggests that their black holes began to grow much earlier.

Scientists concluded that the red color of these galaxies is due to the radiation emitted by the accretion disk surrounding the central black hole. This disk consists of a cloud of gas and dust that the black hole consumes. Given the significant brightness of these disks, in this case, the black holes represent active galactic nuclei, meaning they are actively consuming matter and emitting substantial radiation from their surroundings. This radiation is so intense that it outshines the light from stars within the galaxies.

The "little red dots" are situated so far away that the light from them has been traveling to the Webb telescope for over 12 billion light-years. However, astronomers have determined that these galaxies are relatively small and possess a modest mass. Thus, it is even more astonishing that they harbor such large supermassive black holes.

The authors of the study assert that this new finding indicates that supermassive black holes can actively grow even in small galaxies.

Scientists are still uncertain how these black holes became so massive, but it may be related to their ability to consume matter more rapidly in the early universe. They also suggest that the high density of gas in these galaxies could have led to a denser arrangement of stars. Consequently, when these stars died, they turned into small black holes that eventually merged to form a gigantic black hole.