Black holes are still one of the thorniest problems in physics–ultra-cool computer simulations and Stephen Hawking‘s life work notwithstanding. Scientists still don’t know how dark holes began or grew so massive, for example. But a new computer model is suggesting that ‘dark gulping’ is one possible answer, Space.com reports–an answer that involves invisible dark matter, that elusive material astronomers know exists because they can detect its gravitational effects on galaxies.
The theory goes like this: a large cloud of dark matter could interact with gas to create a dense central mass, the report said. This mass could be unstable, so a small disturbance could make the whole thing collapse quickly, “gulping itself down” to make a black hole. At the beginning, it would be invisible. But eventually, as it ate other matter and gas, and it all swirls around and becomes superheated and luminous, it becomes visible, according to the article.
“It’s a viable, possible scenario,” Kinwah Wu, an astrophysicist at University College
London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, who built the model with another colleague, said in the article. “The model works, but it doesn’t mean that nature behaves like that. We need more observational proof or disproof of this.” (Image credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI))
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