Which came first, black holes or galaxies?

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Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-the-egg problem: Which came first — galaxies or the supermassive black holes in their cores?

For several years now, researchers have known that galaxies and black holes must have co-evolved, with budding galaxies feeding material to a growing black hole while the immense gravity of the black hole generated in its vicinity tremendous radiation that in turn powered star formation. But the scientists hadn't pegged the starting point.

"It looks like black holes came first. The evidence is piling up," said Chris Carilli of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico. Carilli presented his team's findings here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Previous studies of nearby galaxies revealed an intriguing link between the masses of the black holes at their centers and the mass of the central "bulge" (a mass of tightly packed stars and gas) in the galaxies: The black hole's mass is always about one one-thousandth the mass of the surrounding bulge.

The ratio is the same for galaxies of all ages and sizes, whether the central black hole is a few million or many billions of times the mass of our sun...
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AwesomeJosh
  • added January 07, 2009
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10 responses // Which came first, black holes or galaxies?

  •  

    "The ratio is the same for galaxies of all ages and sizes......"

    Much of the math used in cosmology is beyond me but this simple statement I understand and find compelling.

    seeker561
  •  

    Intriguing. But it still doesn't answer the chicken and egg question. Will I ever know?!?!

    islek
    1 response to this
  •  

    What if this bulge is merely an artifact of the black holes radiation illuminating the surrounding gasses. Like looking at a street light on a foggy day. You can change the wattage of the bulb to change the size of the "halo" in the fog, but the ratio will always be constant. Perhaps these black holes in the early universe hadn't had time to collect enough matter/gasses, i.e. fog to illuminate the way they do today.

    bigthinker_
  •  

    Both??

    Stunner1
  •  

    considering black holes come from collapsed stars, something extremely massive must have preceded the black hole...

    tbowman131
  •  

    before there were organisms, or galaxies, before there was matter, before the atom, there were pre-atom era particles that slowly came together to form the first atoms. THAT'S WHAT CAME FIRST the dust before the atom.

    onfut
    1 response to this
  •  

    Same theory chicken or the egg?

    brainery
  •  

    AN UNKNOWN QUESTION THAT WILL PROBABLY NEVER BE ANSWERED.

    lj111

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