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Thousands of new black holes just found!
- Astronomers have discovered thousands of new black holes using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) at Kitt Peak in Arizona.
- The discoveries include more than 300 intermediate-mass black hole candidates and around 2,500 dwarf galaxies with actively feeding black holes at their centers.
- The census of black holes in both categories has tripled due to these findings.
- The DESI mission aims to survey millions of galaxies and has already identified new black hole candidates in distant galaxies using only a fraction of the data.
- Co-author Rahma Alfarsy expressed excitement about the potential discoveries from DESI's data.
- The researchers published their findings in The Astrophysical Journal on February 19, 2025.
- The team led by Ragadeepika Pucha looked at the spectra of 410,000 galaxies, highlighting the importance of active galactic nuclei in dwarf galaxies for finding black holes.
- 300 intermediate-mass black hole candidates were identified, potentially bridging the gap between supermassive and stellar-mass black holes.
- The research poses questions about the formation mechanisms of black holes and their relation to the types of galaxies they inhabit.
- The discoveries are crucial for enhancing our understanding of black holes and their impact on galaxy evolution.
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