Black holes may be the source of dark energy, says scientists
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After comparing the growth rate of black holes in different galaxies, scientists have theorised that dark energy could be created inside these space entities. Until now, no one had any clue or idea about the origin of dark energy.
When astronomers found that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, they theorised that some force must be pushing space entities apart because gravity should be pulling things closer and slowing the expansion. Dark energy is a theoretical form of energy assumed to act in opposition to gravity and occupy the entire universe.
Researchers have released two studies in The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Letters about the dispersion of masses. They concluded that the dispersion of masses seen can be explained by black holes harbouring cores of dark energy.
A team of 17 international researchers led by the University of Hawaii has discovered the first evidence that black holes may be the origin point of black holes.
Until now black holes are believed to gain mass via two methods - an accretion of gas and by merging with other black holes. Scientists studied nine billion years of black hole evolution in dormant giant elliptical galaxies and found that older black holes are much larger than they should be if they are limited to those two methods. This suggests there are other ways to acquire mass, reported Space.com.
According to the team, dark energy in the form of vacuum energy is the secret. It is described as a kind of energy included in spacetime itself.
"We're really saying two things at once: that there's evidence the typical black hole solutions don't work for you on a long, long timescale, and we have the first proposed astrophysical source for dark energy," said Duncan Farrah, one of the authors and astronomer at University of Hawai'i.
"What that means, though, is not that other people haven't proposed sources for dark energy, but this is the first observational paper where we're not adding anything new to the universe as a source for dark energy: black holes in Einstein's theory of gravity are the dark energy," he added.
Dr Chris Pearson of STFC RAL Space, a co-author of a study, said in a statement that the theory, if held, can revolutionise the whole of cosmology. "At last we've got a solution for the origin of dark energy that's been perplexing cosmologists and theoretical physicists for more than 20 years."