![]() ![]() The researchers found that black holes embedded in ancient galaxies that formed in the early universe-which are now dead, and thus don’t form new material to feed their black holes-were more massive than could be explained by the traditional methods of growth, which are eating stars and merging with other black holes. The key to the discovery was tracking the rate of black hole growth relative to their position in the history of the universe. Such work helps us make progress in solving this 21st Century mystery.“If the theory holds, then this is going to revolutionize the whole of cosmology, because at last we've got a solution for the origin of dark energy that's been perplexing cosmologists and theoretical physicists for more than 20 years," study co-author Chris Pearson, from RAL Space in the UK, said in a statement. "We are all desperate to gain some greater insight into its characteristics and origin. “Since its discovery at the end of last century, dark energy has been a riddle wrapped in an enigma," ICG director Bob Nichol said in a UoP press release. Now, a collaboration of astronomers, including those from the University of Portsmouth's (UoP) Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG), have found evidence that suggests that dark matter may have a dynamic nature. Dark energy is thought to be a mysterious force that accelerates the expansion of the Universe and is, therefore, considered to be a cosmological constant according to Einstein - a vacuum energy that's represented by a constant Equation of State (EoS) of -1, for the purposes of the study. Though both invisible, we actually see their effects in terms of how these interact with gravity. ![]() The reality is, dark matter and dark energy are out there - although their mysterious nature has caused some to credit their existence to an illusion. ![]() Both sound like an evil villain's secret plan for galactic conquest, and indeed they're often used as such in science fiction. About 25 percent of the Universe is made up of so-called dark matter, while 68 to 75 percent is dark energy. For several decades now, since Albert Einstein first posited his general theory of relativity, astronomers have come to understand that what we know and experience to be matter in the Universe is only a tiny fraction of what's really out there. ![]()
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