With the help of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have found six galaxies lying around a supermassive black hole when the Universe was less than a billion years old. This is the first time such a close grouping has been seen so soon after the Big Bang and the finding helps us better understand how supermassive black holes, one of which exists at the centre of our Milky Way, formed and grew to their enormous sizes so quickly. It supports the theory that black holes can grow rapidly within large, web-like structures which contain plenty of gas to fuel them.
The release, images and videos are available on:
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2016/
Kind regards,
The ESO Department of Communication
1 October 2020
|
18 September 2020: The exceptional circumstances imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic led ESO to suspend science operations at its observatories in late March. We are now pleased to announce that minimal science operations ...
|
Read more |
|
Interview with Leonardo Testi
18 September 2020: Earlier this week, we announced the discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. On Earth, this molecule is made only industrially or by microbes, raising two possibilities: either we’ve ...
|
Read more |
|
|
|
|