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Newly Discovered ‘Infinity Galaxy' Could Prove How Ancient Supermassive Black Holes Formed
Newly Discovered ‘Infinity Galaxy' Could Prove How Ancient Supermassive Black Holes Formed

WIRED

timea day ago

  • Science
  • WIRED

Newly Discovered ‘Infinity Galaxy' Could Prove How Ancient Supermassive Black Holes Formed

Jul 22, 2025 5:00 AM This collision of two galaxies could demonstrate that theorized 'direct collapse black holes' exist. The newly discovered Infinity Galaxy. Photograph: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, P. van Dokkum A team of astronomers have discovered a curious figure in the universe. It is two distant galaxies colliding with each other to form a larger structure. From Earth's perspective, the junction of the disks resembles the number eight lying down, similar to the infinity symbol (∞). Because of this resemblance, the researchers—who are based at the universities of Yale and Copenhagen—have nicknamed it the 'Infinity Galaxy' and have detailed their discovery in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Beyond its evocative shape, the structure intrigues the scientists because of its contents: Within it could be the first direct evidence of a newly formed primordial supermassive black hole. The images were taken through the James Webb Space Telescope and then enriched with information from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the most powerful X-ray telescope ever created. Light from this galaxy comes from a time when the universe was only 470 million years old—roughly 13.5 billion years ago. In the dual galaxy's structure, at least two consolidated black holes can be observed, each centered in a respective disk (the yellow points in the image below), and a region of compressed gas at the point of intersection suggests the presence of a supermassive object (the green point). The Infinity Galaxy, with three points marked where there could be black holes. Photograph: NASA, P. van Dokkum, G. Brammer The scientists think they might have viewed signs of a direct collapse black hole. Typically, black holes are formed when stars run out of fuel and collapse under their own gravity, but there's an alternative formation phenomenon debated in astrophysics—where a black hole forms via the collapse of gigantic gas cloud, without a star having formed. Such a possibility has been theorized, but this type of black hole has yet to be observed. The largest black holes found in the universe, supermassive black holes, have been identified in galaxies that formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. But what made their formation possible is not yet fully understood. Many supermassive black holes are believed to have come into being as a result of smaller black holes merging. But with very old supermassive black holes, there does not seem to have been enough time for the first stars in the universe to evolve, collapse into stellar-mass black holes, and then merge to colossal, supermassive sizes. So some astronomers have proposed an alternative origin for the universe's first supermassive black holes. According to this hypothesis, the black holes would not need to form from a star or arise from mergers. Instead, the theory goes, dense clumps of matter that in other instances gave rise to galaxies could have compressed directly into massive black holes. Scientists are currently investigating this scenario, although conclusive evidence of this having happened is still lacking. It is possible that the Infinity Galaxy offers revealing clues about the possibility of this second formation pathway. 'During the collision, the gas within these two galaxies shocks and compresses. This compression might just be enough to form a dense knot, which then collapsed into a black hole,' Pieter van Dokkum, a professor of astronomy and physics at Yale and a coauthor on the paper, said in a post on his university's website. 'While such collisions are rare events, similarly extreme gas densities are thought to have been quite common in the earliest cosmic epochs, when galaxies began to form,' Van Dokkum added. Scientists are also considering other, less spectacular alternatives as to what's going on in the Infinity Galaxy. Rather than being created through a direct collapse of gas, that potential extra black hole—the green spot in the image above—could instead be the signs of a black hole ejected from another galaxy as 'Infinity' passes through it. Another possible scenario is that this image actually shows the collision of three galaxies, with the third eclipsed by the other larger ones. For the moment, the team says the preliminary results are exciting. 'We can't say definitively that we have found a direct collapse black hole. But we can say that these new data strengthen the case that we're seeing a newborn black hole, while eliminating some of the competing explanations,' Van Dokkum concluded in a blog for NASA. This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

Manitoba researchers part of team working to unravel mystery of largest black hole merger ever detected
Manitoba researchers part of team working to unravel mystery of largest black hole merger ever detected

CBC

time4 days ago

  • Science
  • CBC

Manitoba researchers part of team working to unravel mystery of largest black hole merger ever detected

A group of Manitoba researchers were involved behind the scenes of an international effort that this week revealed how two massive black holes careened into one — happily, billions of light years from Earth. University of Manitoba astrophysicist Samar Safi-Harb, the Canada Research Chair in Extreme Astrophysics, and her team are collaborators on the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA program, which on Monday published evidence of what Safi-Harb says is "the most massive binary black hole detected to date." Another surprise from the detection, originally made in November 2023, was the breakneck speed at which each black hole was spinning at the time they crashed together — "close to the maximum possible [speed] allowed by theory," said Safi-Harb, who is also a professor of physics and astronomy at the Winnipeg-based U of M. "So not just they are massive, they're spinning like crazy — 400,000 times the Earth's rotation speed." Her team wasn't directly involved in this detection, but they're part of the community of thousands of researchers globally involved in LIGO — the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which operates detectors in Washington state and Louisiana. The team includes U of M postdoctoral fellow Nathan Steinle, who specializes in gravitational wave astrophysics and modelling the collision of black holes, while postdoc Labani Mallick works on electromagnetic observations of black holes. Safi-Harb's PhD student, Neil Doerksen, is focused on improving the sensitivity of detectors used in gravitational wave detection technology, and PhD student Lucas da Conceição works on detection of neutron star gravitational waves. Studying wild extremes All five research wild extremes — extreme temperatures, extreme gravity, extreme magnetic fields exhibited by astrophysical systems. Those just happen to be associated with the deaths of stars — which Safi-Harb is fascinated by because of what they can tell us about where everything comes from. Stellar explosions lead to the creation of some of the heaviest elements in the universe: the calcium in your bones. That gold engagement ring your grandmother left you. The platinum in the catalytic converter stolen from your buddy's sedan. It all came from a beautiful kaboom in the vacuum of space. The more commonly understood way black holes are born is the collapse when a massive star reaches the end of its life. Its stellar corpse morphs into this mysterious, incredibly dense pack of matter, with gravity so intense not even light can escape. That basically makes black holes invisible to conventional light-based telescopes, which is why traditional studies have homed in on the indirect effects black holes have on their surroundings. X-ray telescopes allow scientists to, for example, infer the presence of a black hole by studying the gravitational effects they exert on nearby stars, or by finding materials like gas and dust that forms in disks around black holes. But when it comes to hunting for black hole collisions, different tools are needed. LIGO is designed to look for gravitational wave signatures first predicted to exist by Albert Einstein over a century ago. Einstein's general theory of relativity postulated that these waves rippling through space-time are produced by the motion of accelerating objects. Big, big ones. "If you throw a rock or a stone into a lake, you observe those ripples," said Safi-Harb. "When you have a black hole, it is so dense that it causes these ripples in space-time." If two black holes orbit one another and get closer and closer, they accelerate, "and that leads to really strong gravitational waves," she said. Einstein's prediction remained rooted in the theoretical realm until a decade ago, when scientists managed to observe gravitational waves for the first time through LIGO. Scientists now know of 300 black hole collisions, said Safi-Harb. The latest, dubbed GW231123, is the most massive yet. Scientists detect gravitational waves for 1st time 9 years ago Einstein theory proven more than 100 years later The original pair of black holes had masses 100 and 140 times greater than our sun, and the end product of the merge is in the range of 225 solar masses. That sounds massive, and it is, but on the spectrum of black holes it may fall somewhere in the middle. There are three classes of black holes, including those in our cosmic backyard, known as stellar mass black holes. They can be in the order of 10 to 60 times the mass of our sun. Then there are the supermassive black holes. They reside at the centres of galaxies and can be millions to billions of times more massive than our sun. Some even have names — the dark heart of our Milky Way galaxy is known as Sagittarius A. And evidence has emerged in recent years of the third class — intermediate mass black holes — that may fall between hundreds to thousands of solar masses, like GW231123 and the parent black holes that made it. The fact the parents, and GW231123, all fall into the in-between-zone is exciting — but also a bit of a head-scratcher. "These masses are believed to be 'forbidden,' or not expected to happen, because standard stellar evolution does not predict such black hole formation," said Safi-Harb. It may be that each of those parent black holes were born from mergers of even smaller black holes, said Safi-Harb. "What this discovery is teaching us is that we know that some smaller black holes can make bigger black holes, and maybe bigger black holes collide to make even bigger black holes, and if these are in dense environments, they can make things like our galaxy," she said.

Scientists measure largest ever collision of two black holes
Scientists measure largest ever collision of two black holes

Yahoo

time4 days ago

  • Science
  • Yahoo

Scientists measure largest ever collision of two black holes

Two black holes have collided far beyond the distant edge of the Milky Way, creating the biggest merger ever recorded by gravitational wave detectors. The two phenomena, each more than 100 times the mass of the sun, had been circling each other before they violently collided about 10 billion light years from Earth. Scientists at the Ligo Hanford and Livingston Observatories detected ripples in space-time from the collision just before 2pm UK time on 23 November 2023, when the two US-based detectors in Washington and Louisiana twitched at the same time. Alongside their enormous masses, the signal, dubbed GW231123 after its discovery date, also showed the black holes spinning rapidly, according to researchers. 'This is the most massive black hole binary we've observed through gravitational waves, and it presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation,' said Professor Mark Hannam, from Cardiff University and a member of the Ligo Scientific Collaboration. An artist's impression of a black hole using data from Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope (Nasa/JWST) Gravitational-wave observatories have recorded around 300 black hole mergers. Prior to GW231123, the heaviest merger detected was GW190521, whose combined mass was 140 times that of the sun. The latest merger produced a black hole up to 265 times more massive than the sun. 'The black holes appear to be spinning very rapidly — near the limit allowed by Einstein's theory of general relativity,' said Dr Charlie Hoy from the University of Portsmouth. 'That makes the signal difficult to model and interpret. It's an excellent case study for pushing forward the development of our theoretical tools.' 'It will take years for the community to fully unravel this intricate signal pattern and all its implications,' said Dr Gregorio Carullo, assistant professor at the University of Birmingham. 'Despite the most likely explanation remaining a black hole merger, more complex scenarios could be the key to deciphering its unexpected features. Exciting times ahead!" Facilities like Ligo in the United States, Virgo in Italy, and KAGRA in Japan are engineered to detect the tiniest distortions in spacetime caused by violent cosmic events such as black hole mergers. The fourth observing run began in May 2023, and data through January 2024 are scheduled for release later this summer. 'This event pushes our instrumentation and data-analysis capabilities to the edge of what's currently possible,' says Dr Sophie Bini, a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech. 'It's a powerful example of how much we can learn from gravitational-wave astronomy — and how much more there is to uncover.' GW231123 is set to be presented at the 24th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR24) and the 16th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, held jointly as the GR-Amaldi meeting in Glasgow, from 14 to 18 July.

Scientists measure largest ever collision of two black holes
Scientists measure largest ever collision of two black holes

The Independent

time5 days ago

  • Science
  • The Independent

Scientists measure largest ever collision of two black holes

Two black holes have collided far beyond the distant edge of the Milky Way, creating the biggest merger ever recorded by gravitational wave detectors. The two phenomena, each more than 100 times the mass of the sun, had been circling each other before they violently collided about 10 billion light years from Earth. Scientists at the Ligo Hanford and Livingston Observatories detected ripples in space-time from the collision just before 2pm UK time on 23 November 2023, when the two US-based detectors in Washington and Louisiana twitched at the same time. Alongside their enormous masses, the signal, dubbed GW231123 after its discovery date, also showed the black holes spinning rapidly, according to researchers. 'This is the most massive black hole binary we've observed through gravitational waves, and it presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation,' said Professor Mark Hannam, from Cardiff University and a member of the Ligo Scientific Collaboration. Gravitational-wave observatories have recorded around 300 black hole mergers. Prior to GW231123, the heaviest merger detected was GW190521, whose combined mass was 140 times that of the sun. The latest merger produced a black hole up to 265 times more massive than the sun. 'The black holes appear to be spinning very rapidly — near the limit allowed by Einstein's theory of general relativity,' said Dr Charlie Hoy from the University of Portsmouth. 'That makes the signal difficult to model and interpret. It's an excellent case study for pushing forward the development of our theoretical tools.' 'It will take years for the community to fully unravel this intricate signal pattern and all its implications,' said Dr Gregorio Carullo, assistant professor at the University of Birmingham. 'Despite the most likely explanation remaining a black hole merger, more complex scenarios could be the key to deciphering its unexpected features. Exciting times ahead!" Facilities like Ligo in the United States, Virgo in Italy, and KAGRA in Japan are engineered to detect the tiniest distortions in spacetime caused by violent cosmic events such as black hole mergers. The fourth observing run began in May 2023, and data through January 2024 are scheduled for release later this summer. 'This event pushes our instrumentation and data-analysis capabilities to the edge of what's currently possible,' says Dr Sophie Bini, a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech. 'It's a powerful example of how much we can learn from gravitational-wave astronomy — and how much more there is to uncover.' GW231123 is set to be presented at the 24th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR24) and the 16th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, held jointly as the GR-Amaldi meeting in Glasgow, from 14 to 18 July.

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