Scientists may have just discovered 300 of the rarest black holes

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Scientists may have just discovered 300 of the rarest black holes in the universe

Published 20 hours ago on Feb 21, 2025

How black holes grow to monstrous scales is one of astronomy's prevailing enigmas. A new record-breaking dataset, which reveals 300 potential 'missing link black holes', could help to unravel it.

Astronomers have used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) to discover a treasure trove of black holes, many of which are rare "missing links" in the cosmic monsters' evolution.

The search, which swept across 410,000 galaxies, identified a staggering 2,500 candidate dwarf galaxies with feeding black holes at their centers and a further 300 intermediate-mass "missing link" black hole candidates — making it the largest haul of either black hole type ever made.

The data will help astronomers piece together a stronger understanding of how black holes grow from their tiniest seeds, and how they shape the galaxies that form around them. The researchers published their findings Feb. 19 in the Astrophysical Journal, and the paper is free to read on the arXiv preprint database.

"When a black hole at the center of a galaxy starts feeding, it unleashes a tremendous amount of energy into its surroundings, transforming into what we call an active galactic nucleus," lead author Ragadeepika Pucha, an astronomer at the University of Utah, said in a statement. "This dramatic activity serves as a beacon, allowing us to identify hidden black holes in these small galaxies."

'Missing links' in the universe
Black holes are born from the collapse of giant stars and grow by gorging on gas, dust, stars and other black holes. For some of these gluttonous space-time ruptures, friction causes the material spiraling into their maws to heat up and thus emit light that can be detected by telescopes, turning them into active galactic nuclei (AGN).

Astrophysicists are confident that all massive galaxies, including our own, contain black holes at their centers, but finding evidence of smaller black holes inside dwarf galaxies is much harder due to their reduced sizes.

An artist's illustration of three black holes. (Image credit: Shutterstock)