{"id":42781,"date":"2025-09-25T14:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/42781\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T14:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:23:07","slug":"supermassive-black-holes-not-so-massive-say-scientists-science-and-technology-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/42781\/","title":{"rendered":"Supermassive black holes not so massive say scientists | Science and Technology News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">Study of galaxy more than 12 billion light years away shows black holes may be smaller than believed, challenging models of cosmic growth.<\/p>\n<p>Published On 25 Sep 202525 Sep 2025<\/p>\n<p>Click here to share on social media<\/p>\n<p>share2<\/p>\n<p class=\"rich-share__social-text\">Share<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"270\" data-end=\"416\">\u201cSupermassive\u201d black holes may not be as enormous as once assumed, scientists have reported.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"270\" data-end=\"416\">Astronomers told the media on Thursday that, following a breakthrough study of a distant quasar, an extremely bright, active core of a very distant galaxy, the supermassive black hole at its heart has a mass that is equal to \u201conly\u201d about one billion suns, making it one-10th of what was assumed.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"418\" data-end=\"638\">A team from the University of Southampton, working with European colleagues, observed the galaxy, more than 12 billion light years away, using state-of-the-art equipment at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"964\" data-end=\"1271\">\u201cDespite the quasar\u2019s extreme luminosity, the black hole at its heart was found to have a mass equal to \u2018only\u2019 around one billion suns,\u201d Associate Professor Christian Wolf told <a href=\"https:\/\/science.anu.edu.au\/news-events\/news\/new-technology-takes-kilos-early-universes-supermassive-black-holes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">ANU Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"964\" data-end=\"1271\">He added that instead of spinning rapidly as expected, the black hole was \u201cbelching up\u201d gas, driven outwards by the blinding intensity of light.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"964\" data-end=\"1271\">The black hole at the centre of this young galaxy was first detected in 2024 by Wolf and his colleagues at the Australian National University (ANU).<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1273\" data-end=\"1635\">Professor Seb Hoenig of the University of Southampton said the discovery helps solve a longstanding mystery.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1273\" data-end=\"1635\">\u201cWe have been wondering for years how it\u2019s possible we discovered all these fully grown supermassive black holes in very young galaxies shortly after the Big Bang. They shouldn\u2019t have had the time to grow that massive,\u201d he told the Press Association (PA).<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1637\" data-end=\"1964\">The study, published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, used Gravity+, an instrument that combines light from four of the world\u2019s largest telescopes at ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope in Chile. The team, which also included researchers from France, Germany, Portugal and Belgium, analysed the hot gas spiralling into the black hole.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1966\" data-end=\"2124\">Their results suggest that intense radiation is blasting most of the gas away, preventing the black hole from gaining mass as quickly as previously thought.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2126\" data-end=\"2286\">\u201cThink of it like a cosmic hairdryer set to maximum power,\u201d Hoenig explained to PA. \u201cThe intense radiation around it is blowing everything away that approaches it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2288\" data-end=\"2416\">The findings may lead scientists to reconsider the methods used to measure black holes and reshape models of cosmic evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Study of galaxy more than 12 billion light years away shows black holes may be smaller than believed,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1813,61,60,43,82,3971,247,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-42781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-science-and-technology","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}