A new model shows how early black holes could have grown to
over a billion solar masses
At the ends of the Universe there are black holes with
masses equaling billions of our sun. These giant bodies – quasars – feed on
interstellar gas, swallowing large quantities of it non-stop. Thus they reveal
their existence: The light that is emitted by the gas as it is sucked in and
crushed by the black hole's gravity travels for eons across the Universe until
it reaches our telescopes. Looking at the edges of the Universe is therefore
looking into the past. These far-off, ancient quasars appear to us in their
“baby photos” taken less than a billion years after the Big Bang: monstrous
infants in a young Universe.