Discovery of earliest known black holes announced by astronomers
Astronomers have discovered what appear to be two of the earliest and most primitive supermassive black holes known. The discovery, based on observations with the NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and other space observatories, will be published in the March 18 edition of the scientific journal Nature. Black holes are beastly distortions of space and time. The most massive and active ones lurk at the cores of galaxies, and are usually surrounded by doughnut-shaped structures of dust and gas that feed and sustain the growing black holes. These hungry supermassive black holes are called quasars. "The main goal of this collaboration is to determine if these very first quasars -- which are very distant from Earth in space and time -- are feeding and growing in the same way as do quasars that are closer to Earth," said Niel Brandt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University. (more)