LOS ANGELES — Astronomers using data from NASA's WISE mission have discovered millions of supermassive black holes. A survey of the night sky by NASA's Wide Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has uncovered a huge amount of information for astronomers – including the discovery of millions of supermassive black holes and a new type of galaxy. NASA has been making the WISE data public, and astronomers, like a black hole, are devoring that information at a prodigious rate and using it to create a better understanding of how the universe works, forbes.com reported. “WISE has exposed a menagerie of hidden objects,” WISE scientist Hashima Hasan said in a press release. “We've found an asteroid dancing ahead of Earth in its orbit, the coldest star-like orbs known and now, supermassive black holes and galaxies hiding behind cloaks of dust.” WISE has an advantage over traditional visual astronomy because it looks at infrared light – meaning its looking for heat signatures. That means scientists are able to discover objects that were previously hidden by dust. In one study NASA reported, astronomers have found over 2.5 million supermassive black holes. These black holes were previously invisible, but their heat signatures are unmistakable. What's important for astronomers is that these black holes are being seen at a range of distances – some as many as 10 billion light years away. This gives scientists a chance to see supermassive black holes interact with their galaxies at different stages in their evolution, thus giving them a chance to gather more information about how the universe evolved.Of particular interest to astronomers using the WISE data was the discovery of extremely bright galaxies that they've been unable to glimpse in detail previously because they've been obscured by dust. Located billions of light years away, these galaxies are trillions of times brighter than our own sun. After being located by WISE, they were studied in more detail by other instruments such as the Spritzer Space Telescope. After studying some of these galaxies, astronomers have picked up more clues about how supermassive black holes form in the first place. Were they initially created by the Big Bang? Are they the product of a galaxy after billions of years of evolution? From some of the preliminary indications, it may turn out the supermassive black holes form earlier in the lifetime of a galaxy than some models have hypothesized. Indeed, astronomers have caught some galaxies using their supermassive black holes to churn out more and more stars. “These dusty, cataclysmically forming galaxies are so rare WISE had to scan the entire sky to find them,” said astronomer Peter Eisenhardt in the NASA release. “We are also seeing evidence that these record setters may have formed their black holes before the bulk of their stars. The ‘eggs' may have come before the ‘chickens.'” The slew of papers coming from the WISE mission is a great reminder that some of the most exciting work going on in space is actually going on right here on Earth, thanks to innovations that have enabled us to see more of the sky than ever before.— Agencies
