The Clearest Understanding of the Life Cycle of Supermassive Black Holes
The doughnut-shaped rings surrounding many supermassive black holes tell researchers how fast extraterrestrial objects are feeding and could change how black holes are viewed from Earth. Credits: ESA/NASA, AVO project and Paolo Padovani The researchers used X-ray telescopes and new data analysis techniques to describe extraterrestrial objects. Black holes with different light signatures that were once thought to be the same object viewed from different angles are actually in different stages of their life cycle, according to a study led by Dartmouth scientists. New research on black holes known as “active galactic nuclei,” or AGNs, says that it definitively demonstrates the need to revise the widely used “AGN unified model” that characterizes supermassive black holes because they all share the same properties. This study provides an answer to a troubling space mystery and should allow researchers to create more precise models of the evolution of the universe and how black holes develo