Some stars in the early universe may have been unimaginably large

Schematic diagram of a super black hole.

Scientists now know that at the center of almost every galaxy, there is a giant super black hole coiled up there. Where such black holes come from is still unclear. A recent study suggests that they may have formed in the early universe when a small group of stars with unimaginably large masses exploded in supernovae and then continued to draw in surrounding material.

It is still difficult to detect black holes with today’s technology, and even more difficult to find out where they came from. Most scientists believe that these black holes are the result of collapsing stars, which are known as the “seeds of black holes.

In previous years, one theory speculated that the black holes at the center of these galaxies were created by the collapse of stars hundreds of times the mass of the Sun, and that they have continued to draw in matter from their surroundings over the years to grow into the super black holes we see today. But scientists believe that it is unlikely that these black holes would have maintained a very high draw rate to grow from that level of mass to today’s size.

A recent study completed by scientists from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, in collaboration with the National Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (NIAA), suggests a new speculation.

The study, published March 4 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, found some preliminary evidence using a “radiative hydrodynamic simulation” method that These black holes are black holes turned by stars 104-105 times the mass of the Sun.

One of the lead researchers, Ke-Jung Chen of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, said, “In the early universe, there were probably a handful of stars that were tens of thousands of times more massive than the Sun. They were probably the predecessors of the super black holes that are now at the centers of galaxies. This is because the larger the black hole seed, the more efficient it is at sucking up the surrounding matter. These black holes can grow rapidly without having to maintain a very high drawdown rate.”

Excitingly, these studies mention that if such supermassive supernovae do exist, they could be detected by the James Webb Space Telescope, which lifts off at the end of this year!