Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: A group of sciences have said that black holes could be the source of dark energy and may be driving the expansion of the cosmos.
An international team of scientists made the claim after comparing growth rates of black holes in different galaxies.
They concluded that the spread of masses observed could be explained by black holes bearing cores of “dark energy”, the mysterious force accelerating the expansion of the universe.
Instead of dark energy being smeared out across spacetime, as assumed by many physicists, the scientists suggest that it is created and remains inside black holes, which are formed by collapsing stars.
“We propose that black holes are the source for dark energy,” said Duncan Farrah, a scientist at the University of Hawaii.
He added, “This dark energy is produced when normal matter is compressed during the death and collapse of large stars.”
In the latest study, researchers compared black hole masses in young galaxies, where stars were still forming, with black hole masses in giant but dormant galaxies, where stars are not born any more. In younger galaxies, black holes can grow by swallowing stars near them and other material, but there is little left for them to swallow in older galaxies.
Black holes in dormant galaxies much larger than expected: study
The scientists found that the black holes inside dormant galaxies were seven to 20 times larger in mass than expected, a discovery they say points to another process by which black holes grow.
Researchers said in the study published in two papers, The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Letters, that the findings could be explained if black holes grow with the expansion of universe. This could be the case with black holes believed to contain dark energy in their cores, the authors argue.
The claim was met with raised eyebrows by some independent researchers, who noted that although the idea deserved scrutiny, it was far too soon to link black holes and dark energy.
Dark energy was first proposed by scientists in the late 1990s when measurements of distant stars revealed the increasing pace of the expansion of the universe.
