Supermassive black holes were probably born big, a new study reports.

These behemoths — which lie at the hearts of most if not all galaxies, and can contain billions of times more mass than the sun — probably form after the collapse of gigantic gas clouds, rather than the death of individual stars, as some astronomers had thought, the study suggests.

"There is a lot of controversy over which path these black holes take," study co-author Andrea Ferrara, of Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, said in a statement. "Our work suggests we are converging on one answer, where black holes start big and grow at the normal rate, rather than starting small and growing at a very fast rate."

Source:
courtesy of SPACE

by Mike Wall

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