It is the ultimate chicken and egg problem: Which came first, galaxies' stars or the black holes at their centres? David Alexander from Durham University, UK, and his collaborators are putting their money on the stars.
The group surveyed six young galaxies more than 10 billion light years away and found that their black holes were between sixty million and one hundred million times more massive than our Sun.
That may be huge, but given the number of stars in each galaxy and current models of how galaxies grow, the findings suggest that these black holes appeared after the stars started multiplying. The stars probably helped the black holes grow by feeding them gases leftover from the stars' own birth.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Astronomy: Galactic beginnings. Nature 453, 4 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/453004e
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/453004e
