Supermassive black holes are millions to billions of times more massive than the Sun and are usually found at the center
They may be at rest, in which casedo not feed on gas or the stars around them, and also emit very little light. The only way to detect them is by the gravitational effect on stars and gas that are located close to the supermassive black hole.
However, in the early universe, supermassive blackholes, which were just growing, actively absorbed various materials and emitted a huge amount of radiation, sometimes eclipsing the entire galaxy in which they are located.
New research conducted by a graduate studentUniversity of Illinois astronomy professor Colin Burke and Professor Yue Shen have identified a clear relationship between the mass of actively feeding supermassive holes and their age.
The team collected a large dataset onsupermassive holes to study how their radiation changes. Scientists have determined the characteristic time scale and how the size and structure of the hole change during this period. The researchers then compared the results with data on growing white dwarfs, the remnants of stars and found that the same ratio between their scale and mass remains.
Flicker or radiation, the authors note, israndom fluctuations that occur as a black hole feeds. Astronomers can quantify them. For growing black holes, the flickering begins with short bursts and ends with long bursts. The larger the black hole, the longer this transition from short bursts to long ones.
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