Supermassive Black Holes Likely Born in 'Halos' of Dark Matter

By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | January 23, 2019 03:30pm ET

The birth story of the universe's first supermassive black holes is getting a rethink.

Researchers have generally thought that the seeds of these pioneering behemoths sprouted in areas awash in ultraviolet radiation streaming from neighbor galaxies. This radiation inhibited the formation of normal stars, freeing up material for eventual incorporation into black holes, the idea goes.

But a new study suggests that another phenomenon was perhaps more important in suppressing this type of star formation — the rapid growth of "halos" of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up most of the material universe (and is so named because it neither absorbs nor reflects light). [Gallery: Dark Matter Throughout the Universe]

"In this study, we have uncovered a totally new mechanism that sparks the formation of massive black holes in particular dark-matter halos," study lead author John Wise, an associate professor in the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said in a statement.

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