The perplexing objects recently observed by the James Webb Space Telescope may have existed since the birth of the universe.
Since its activation, the world’s most powerful space telescope, James Webb, has revealed data about several objects that scientists consider “impossible” in the early universe.
Among these are the colossal black holes, with masses ranging from 100,000 to 1 billion solar masses, observed during the Cosmic Dawn period – the first billion years following the Big Bang event that created the universe – or just a few hundred million years later.
This phenomenon is entirely unreasonable according to popular cosmological theories. However, a new study from Italy provides a plausible explanation.
Illustration of two of the most terrifying objects in the universe – two supermassive black holes – in the process of merging – (Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH).
According to Live Science, most scientists believe that black holes originate from massive stars.
The largest type of black holes – known as supermassive black holes – achieve their enormous size by consuming matter and merging with one another over billions of years.
However, in the 1970s, the renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking proposed that the universe may have naturally produced countless small black holes in the first moments of the Big Bang.
These black holes would not arise from the collapse of stars; instead, they would be formed directly from matter and energy compressed to high densities amid the chaotic fluctuations of that primordial world.
After decades of investigation, there has been no evidence of such primordial black holes.
But the model from a research team led by Dr. Francesco Ziparo from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in Italy suggests that the “impossible” black holes captured by James Webb are precisely what Dr. Hawking referred to.
In this scenario, the gigantic black holes – very likely including Sagittarius A* at the center of our Milky Way galaxy – did not grow after the first stars and galaxies formed.
Instead, these “primordial black hole seeds” existed from the very first moment of the universe, as part of what the Big Bang produced right from the start, 13.8 billion years ago.
They may be as small as asteroids but quickly acquired most of their mass during the “Dark Ages” of the universe, which occurred even before the first stars and galaxies.
According to recent models, the Dark Ages could last approximately 400,000 years after the Big Bang and extend for about 50-100 million years.
Thus, when the first stars ignited, they would share the universe with these monstrous black holes that had become gigantic.
