Just-so black holes
Astronomers Aaron Smith and Volker Bromm of the University of Texas at Austin, working with Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have discovered evidence for an unusual kind of black hole born extremely early in the universe. In new research they show that a recently discovered source of intense radiation is likely powered by a “direct-collapse black hole,” a phenomenon predicted by theorists more than a decade ago. The work was published this month in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. “It’s a cosmic miracle,” Bromm said, referring to the precise set of conditions present half a billion years after the Big Bang that allowed the behemoths to emerge. “It’s the only time in the history of the universe when conditions are just right” for them to form. Direct-collapse black holes also may be the solution to a long-standing puzzle in astronomy: How did supermassive black holes form...