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Did all supermassive black holes begin as stellar mass black holes? Is there some other way for them to form?
by danenania 6y ago
Did all supermassive black holes begin as stellar mass black holes? Is there some other way for them to form?
- saagarjha 6y agoIt’s actually not really known how these form. Some theories speculate that they’re normal stellar-mass (with “normal” in this case being hundreds of solar masses, because stars were huge back then) black hope that just ate a lot of stuff. Perhaps they merged with other black holes, too. And it’s also possible that a bunch of dust just collapsed under its own gravity early in the universe’s lifecycle and became dense enough to go directly to a black hole.
- cipherzero 6y agoMy understanding is that we're not totally certain if all black holes form from stellar mass black holes. There is a theory that black holes can form from direct collapse. In this case, as I understand it, it can skip the star phase and just collapse straight into a black hole.... but I really am not an expert. You can find more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_collapse_black_hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_collapse_black_hole And I HIGHLY recommend the PBS NOVA episode "Black Hole Apocalypse" (Jan 10, 2018, Season 45 Episode 1). It was on Netflix for a while (and may still be.) Edit: here is the full episode on PBS (thank you NOVA!!!) https://www.pbs.org/video/black-hole-apocalypse-yj34qi/ https://www.pbs.org/video/black-hole-apocalypse-yj34qi/