Evidence for Thousands of New Black Holes Discovered | Mayall Telescope+DESI
Cosmoview Episode 94: DESI Uncovers 300 New Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Plus 2500 New Active Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies | Within the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument’s early data, scientists have uncovered the largest samples ever of intermediate-mass black holes and dwarf galaxies hosting an active black hole, more than tripling the existing census of both. These large statistical samples will allow for more in-depth studies of the dynamics between dwarf galaxy evolution and black hole growth, and open up vast discovery potential surrounding the evolution of the Universe’s earliest black holes.
DESI is a state-of-the-art instrument that can capture light from 5,000 galaxies simultaneously. It was constructed, and is operated, with funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. DESI is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at the NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. The program is now in its fourth of five years surveying the sky and is set to observe roughly 40 million galaxies and quasars by the time the project ends.
The DESI project is an international collaboration of more than 900 researchers from over 70 institutions around the world and is managed by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
With DESI’s early data, including survey validation and 20% of the first year of operations, the team, led by University of Utah postdoctoral researcher Ragadeepika Pucha, was able to obtain an unprecedented dataset that includes the spectra of 410,000 galaxies, including roughly 115,000 dwarf galaxies—small, diffuse galaxies containing thousands to several billions of stars and very little gas. This extensive set would allow Pucha and her team to explore the complex interplay between black hole evolution and dwarf galaxy evolution.
While astrophysicists are fairly confident that all massive galaxies, like our Milky Way, host black holes at their centers, the picture becomes unclear as you move toward the low-mass end of the spectrum. Finding black holes is a challenge in itself, but identifying them in dwarf galaxies is even more difficult, owing to their small sizes and the limited ability of our current instruments to resolve the regions close to these objects. An actively feeding black hole, however, is easier to spot.
“When a black hole at the center of a galaxy starts feeding, it unleashes a tremendous amount of energy into its surroundings, transforming into what we call an active galactic nucleus,” says Pucha. “This dramatic activity serves as a beacon, allowing us to identify hidden black holes in these small galaxies.”
https://noirlab.edu/science/programs/kpno/telescopes/nicholas-mayall-4m-telescope
Duration: 1 minute, 39 seconds
Release Date: Feb. 19, 2025
#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #DwarfGalaxies #BlackHoles #ActiveBlackHoles #Astrophysics #Cosmos #Universe #MayallTelescope #DESI #KPNO #Arizona #NSF #AURA #DOE #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video
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