For the first time, scientists – including a Greek woman and a Greek Cypriot man – have announced that they have found evidence from observations of galaxies that prove there is abundant dark energy inside black holes, fueling the universe’s continued expansion.
Instead of spreading through spacetime, as many physicists had assumed, the researchers proposed that dark energy could have been created inside black holes. However, further observations and studies are needed to confirm this, as already other scientists do not seem to be convinced by the new claim, which comes to redefine what a black hole is.
Astrophysicists from nine countries, who made two related publications in the astrophysical journals “The Astrophysical Journal” and “The Astrophysical Journal Letters,” say they have solid evidence of a “cosmological connection” between black holes and mysterious dark energy and extension. The connection between black holes and the expanding universe.
“We have the first proposed astrophysical source for dark energy,” said lead researcher Duncan Farah of the University of Hawaii. “We propose that black holes, the remnants of exploding stars, are the astrophysical source of dark energy.”
Scientists believe that black holes increase their mass over billions of years to an extent that cannot be explained by relevant theories, and argue that they actually contain dark energy at their core. The new research focuses on black holes in ancient and quiescent galaxies, where they don’t have much stellar material to “swallow”.
Black holes in these relatively dormant galaxies are estimated to be seven to 20 times more abundant than they were nine billion years ago, the researchers argue, indicating that some other, non-exogenous process is fueling them: an intrinsic dark force, they predict.
Normally, based on the laws of physics, gravity causes the universe to gradually slow down, but a mysterious force proposed in the late 1990s, called dark energy, appears to overcompensate for gravity and cause the universe to expand. A faster rate.
If supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies are the source of the universe’s dark energy, perhaps another cosmic puzzle will be solved: what happens at the center of a black hole, the so-called “singularity.” Its laws break physics. If there is dark energy at the core of a black hole, there is no need for “singularities”.
Astronomer of the European Southern Observatory Dr. Evantia Hatziminaglou (1996 graduate of AUTH’s Physics Department, with a doctorate in astrophysics from the French University Paul Sabatier of Toulouse) also participates in the publications of astrophysicist Andreas Efstathiou. European University of Cyprus.
