Study: Black Holes Seem to Form Before Galaxies

Study: Black Holes Seem to Form Before Galaxies
January 7, 2009 from the A.P.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When galaxies initially formed,
they weren't the first in the cosmic neighborhood. The
supermassive black holes, which reside at the center
of galaxies, probably moved in first, a new astronomy
study suggests.

Measurements from radio telescopes looking at the
early universe, hint at that answer to this cosmic
chicken-and-egg question of whether the galaxy or its
supermassive black hole existed first. The new
research presented Wednesday at the American
Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif., is
preliminary, however. It's based on measurements of
four black holes that date to about 1 to 2 billion
years after the Big Bang.

Previous measurements estimating the mass of galaxies
and black holes showed a nice steady relationship that
didn't give a clue as to which came first. But when
astronomers used radio waves to look back to 1 to 2
billion years after the Big Bang, they found four
supermassive black holes that were far larger than the
standard plot would show. That likely means that they
formed before the galaxies, said study lead author
Chris Carilli of the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory in Socorro, N.M.

But after that, astronomers are still clueless on why
this happens and how the galaxies formed around them.
''I don't think it clears the murky waters of our understanding of
galaxy formation,'' Carilli said in a news conference.

SKEPTIC: But, what did the black holes form from? ...
SDR: Well, maybe the universe before these black holes
was filed with Graham crackers, and those Graham
crackers combined to form the black holes. THEN,
after atoms came about (and formed the stars, planets,
and ear wax that make up the matter of the galaxies),
the galaxies began to collect around the black holes.
Of course, the original Graham crackers are now in
the black holes, so it's not going to be possible to
tell what they tasted like--although we can deduce
that they probably tasted even staler than today's
Graham crackers, obviously on account of their being
the dang nabbit oldest Graham crackers ever out there.

S D Rodrian
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