The oldest, brightest black holes in the universe were born from violent gas attacks, new study sugg

The oldest, brightest black holes in the universe were born from violent gas attacks, new study suggests
By Brandon Specktor published about 20 hours ago

Some supermassive quasars formed within the first billion years after the Big Bang. Now, scientists know why.



A supercomputer simulation shows massive stars forming (red) in a cloud of ancient gas. (Image credit: University of Portsmouth / Nature)


Twinkling like cosmic lighthouses on a shore 13 billion light-years from Earth, quasars are some of the oldest, brightest relics of the early universe that astronomers can detect today.

Short for "quasi-stellar radio sources," quasars are gargantuan black holes that glow as brightly as galaxies and are millions to billions of times as massive as Earth's sun. Today, quasars exist at the centers of many large galaxies. But thanks to their exceptional luminosity, quasars have been tracked far across space-time, with roughly 200 of them identified as forming within the first billion years of our universe's history.

How could such massive objects form so early, when galaxies were sparse and large stars were exceptionally rare? The question has bedeviled researchers for more than two decades, since the first quasars were identified — and now, a new study published July 6 in the journal Nature(opens in new tab), may provide a long-sought answer.

Using a computer simulation, researchers modeled star formation in the early universe, focusing on one of the rare junctures where two streams of cold, turbulent gas met. While streams of star-forming gas crisscross the universe like cosmic interstates today, the natural "clouds" or reservoirs where two streams met were exceedingly rare within the first billion years after the Big Bang, making them tempting but elusive areas of study.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/oldest-quasars-in-universe-formation