Astronomers are missing a significant portion of supermassive black holes due to obscuration by gas and dust. A new study reveals the potential for many more black holes to exist than previously estimated, hidden behind these veils. These monstrous black holes may be influencing the evolution of galaxies in ways we are only beginning to understand.
The universe could be teeming with far more monstrous black holes than previously thought, ravenously consuming their surroundings. A team of scientists theorizes that astronomers might be missing between 30% to 50% of these feeding black holes. Unlike creatures hiding under the bed (we guarantee you'd notice if they were), these cosmic giants seem to be lurking behind the vast veils of galactic gas and dust that nourish them.
'The relative size scales of a supermassive black hole to its host galaxy is like comparing a pea to the Earth,' explained study team leader Peter Boorman, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Maryland on Monday (Jan. 13). 'But despite that extreme size difference, an accreting supermassive black hole has the potential to unleash havoc or have a positive influence on its host galaxy,' Boorman added.This phenomenon, called obscuration, occurs when feeding or 'accreting' supermassive black holes are hidden in otherwise bright regions called active galactic nuclei (AGN) by the very material they feed on. Boorman, formally of the University of Southhampton in England, explained that feeding and growing supermassive black holes require a reservoir of material around them, which he likened to a donut shape. 'Depending on the orientation of that material towards our line of sight, we either see down to the center of the accreting material, which is very bright, or we see heavy obscuration,' he said. The deepest X-ray image of space captured by NASA's Chandra X-ray space observatory contains 5,000 feeding supermassive black holes. This number could actually be as high as 10,000; Chandra simply can't see them all.By visualizing infrared light coming from clouds surrounding supermassive black holes, the team created the first highly refined census of black holes growing by consuming matter around them. 'Though black holes are dark, the surrounding gas heats up and glows intensely, making them some of the brightest objects in space,' Boorman explained. 'We’ve found that many more are lurking in plain sight — hiding behind dust and gas, rendering them invisible to normal telescopes.'Hunting out these hidden feeding black holes could help explain how they grow to such tremendous sizes. It could also provide a better understanding of how they influence the evolution of galaxies. Boorman illustrated the profound difference in our view of the universe if we could detect X-rays. 'If our eyes were able to detect X-rays, the sky would be full of dots,' he said. 'And every single one of those dots would be an accreting supermassive black hole.
Supermassive Black Holes Obscuration Active Galactic Nuclei Astronomy Galaxy Evolution
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