Supermassive black holes may have the power to 'quench' star formation in their galaxies, according to a new study that detected numerous supermassive black holes from early on in our local universe's life.
in April, compared data from stagnant galaxies versus star-forming galaxies, and found that among older galaxies, those producing no stars were far more likely to have a supermassive black hole lurking at their centre.Many massive elliptical galaxies in our local universe — which refers to a region around our solar system about 1 billion light years in radius — are relatively stagnant, seeing little star formation.
An active galactic nucleus is a small, central point of a galaxy that has a significantly higher luminosity and radiation than anything else in the galaxy, sometimes so bright it outshines the entire galaxy completely. In this study, researchers wanted to dive into this theory by looking at a wider spectrum of galaxies at once, including ones that were dimmer and farther away, which may not have been included in research before.
The team, led by researchers in Japan, looked specifically at galaxies 9.5 - 12.5 billion light years away. The study also found that the trend of stagnant galaxies having a brighter luminosity than star-forming galaxies was weaker among galaxies that were younger and closer to Earth, compared to those that were much farther away.