New Theory Suggests How Supermassive Black Holes Formed So Fast!

credit: ESO/M

A supermassive black hole (SMBH) is on the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses (M☉), and is found in the centre of almost all known massive galaxies.In the case of the Milky Way, the SMBH corresponds with the location of Sagittarius. Their presence is important in regulating how galaxies change. However, astronomers have an issue with them because they have discovered huge black holes already in place when the universe was still very young.

A team physicists have proposed a new mechanism for the quick formation of supermassive black holes. The researchers suggest that primordial gas moving at supersonic speed inside large dark matter clumps could accumulate rapidly enough to turn into black holes.

"The study identified a promising physical process through which a massive black hole could form fast enough by only introducing supersonic gas motions left over the Big Bang. These massive black holes born in the early universe continued to grow to become a supermassive black hole," lead author Dr Shingo Hirano told IFLScience

This provides a solution for the discovery of a supermassive black hole already in place 770 million years after whats so called the Big Bang. However, this is not the only hypothesis ,Recently, it has been suggested that proto-galaxies could help with the formation of such objects. 

"Other hypotheses on the formation of SMBH in the early Universe resort to very particular conditions; e.g. nearby light source galaxy or super-Eddington growth. Whereas our scenario need only the supersonic gas streams which are intrinsically generated in the early Universe according to the standard model of structure formation," added Dr Hirano. 

The formation of supermassive black holes is one of the great mysteries but we hope to solve it.