International experts suggest that the dark energy produced when stars
collide comes from black holes.
Supermassive black holes are the worst thing ever, but some scientists
think the giant objects discovered at the center of many galaxies may be
what's causing the universe to expand.
An multinational team that examined the development rates of black holes in
many galaxies made the startling claim. They come to the conclusion that
black holes with "dark energy" cores, the unknown force driving the
universe's accelerated expansion, might account for the observed
distribution of masses.
Scientists propose that dark energy is formed and persists inside black
holes, which arise as a result of the crushing pressures of collapsing
stars, as opposed to being spread out over spacetime as many physicists have
thought.
Duncan Farah, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii, stated: "We argue
that black holes are the source for dark energy." As ordinary matter is
crushed during the demise and collapse of massive stars, dark energy is
created.
Independent specialists questioned the assertion, with one stating that
while the theory merited investigation, it was still too early to draw a
connection between black holes and dark energy. If this assertion is to last
more than a few months, a variety of counterarguments and facts must be
understood, according to Vitor Cardoso, a professor of physics at the Niels
Bohr Institute in Copenhagen.
As observations of far-off stars showed that the universe was expanding
faster than previously thought, scientists initially put up the idea of dark
energy in the late 1990s. Yet, the discovery presented a conundrum for
astronomers: given that gravity ought to be slowing the expansion, what may
be accelerating it?
Researchers proposed dark energy, an enigmatic force that opposes gravity,
as a stand-in for a solution. Dark energy essentially fits the "cosmological
constant" that Einstein proposed in 1917. In order to prevent the cosmos
from collapsing, Einstein added it to general relativity as a repair, but
later abandoned it, calling it his "biggest folly."
In the most recent study, researchers compared black hole masses in massive
but inactive galaxies, where no new stars are created, with black hole
masses in young galaxies, where stars are actively developing. Black holes
can expand by ingesting neighboring stars and other matter in early
galaxies, but in older galaxies, there isn't much left for them to suck
in.
The researchers discovered that the black holes in sleeping galaxies were
seven to twenty times more massive than anticipated, a discovery that
suggests there is another mechanism at work when it comes to the black
holes' growth.
The findings, according to the researchers, might be explained if black
holes expand with the cosmos, they claim in two publications that were
published in
The Astrophysical Journal
and
The Astrophysical Journal Letters. According to the authors, black holes containing dark energy at their
centers may exhibit this behavior.
According to Chris Pearson, co-author of the paper and Astronomy Group
Leader at STFC RAL Space in Oxfordshire, "the significance of this work is
that it has taken the hypotheses about black holes with dark energy cores
and related them for the first time to concrete measurements of the cosmos."
The mass of these black holes is anticipated to increase as the universe
grows.
If the researchers are right, they will have unlocked the mystery
surrounding one of the universe's most enigmatic forces' beginnings, if not
its nature. But much more effort must be done before it can become popular.
How black holes can draw everything surrounding them towards them while
still tearing the cosmos apart is one of many unanswered issues.
In regard to the findings, Cardoso noted, "There are probably more
commonplace reasons." "This paper analyzes a fairly simplistic relationship
between black hole mass and universe expansion rate... and unsupported by
core values.
The results of this study might potentially simply state, "Black holes
evolve differently now than they did billions of years ago," the author
continued. "It is far, far too early to suppose that black holes are
connected to dark energy in any manner."
Farrah concurs that more has to be done. We haven't demonstrated anything
here, for sure, he added. It will require a lot more study to validate or
disprove this hypothesis, but the data warrants more examination and further
testing.
"Given the mysterious nature of dark energy, which has been considered in
various guises for over a century, it is healthy to consider new ideas like
this, and to think how they can be refuted," said Ofer Lahav, professor of
astronomy at University College London and participant in galaxy surveys of
dark energy.
