Mar 13 2001
From The Space Library
A team of astronomers released images taken by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, revealing that black holes are present throughout the universe, across space and time, more pervasively than previously estimated. The researchers had found that black holes were even more common millions of years ago than they are today. The scientists had used new x-ray technology to examine galaxies several billion years old. The research had focused on a small sliver of the sky~ a deep field~ that the Chandra X-ray Observatory had probed looking for black holes and other bodies. Based on the findings in the relatively small sampling, the researchers had estimated that the universe might contain as many as 300 million black holes. Chandra had captured images using exposure times of up to 10 days and focusing on the same region of the sky for more than one year. The astronomers believed that their new images had exposed the early history of the universe, perhaps traveling as far back in time as 90 percent of the way to the Big Bang. In examining this distant patch of sky, the researchers had discovered black holes of all types and masses. (NASA, “Deepest X-rays Ever Reveal Universe Teeming with Black Holes,” news release 01-37, 13 March 2001; Kathy Sawyer, “Young Cosmos Was Full of Black Holes,” Washington Post, 14 March 2001; Associated Press, “X-ray Telescope Finds Heavens Brimming with Black Holes,” 14 March 2001.)
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