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X-ray telescope finds heavens brimming with black hole
Super massive black holes once dominated the universe, sucking in gas, dust and whole stars and erupting with surges of x-rays that have journeyed since for billions of years across the heavens.
Super massive black holes once dominated the universe, sucking in gas, dust and whole stars and erupting with surges of x-rays that have journeyed since for billions of years across the heavens.
That's a picture of the early universe captured by the orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope in a study focused on small sections of the sky for days-long exposures to capture faint x-rays streaming from more than 12 billion light-years away.
“The Chandra data show us giant black holes were much more active in the past than at present,” Riccardo Giacconi, a John Hopkins University astronomer, said on Tuesday at a news conference.
“If you look at the sky with x-ray eyes, you see almost nothing but black holes,” said Bruce Margon, a professor of astronomy at the university of Washington, Seattle.
The Chandra study, experts say, confirms theories by showing that the early universe teemed with active black holes, spewing x-rays across the heavens.
Bureau Report