Black Holes Could Be Devoured by Billions of Hidden Matter, Astronomers Say

London: Astronomers have recently discovered a bunch of black holes that are pretty hard to spot. They used infrared light to peek through clouds of dust and gas. And guess what? They think there could be billions more out there just waiting to be found.

These scientists are pretty clever. They figured out that some black holes can be seen when they gobble up nearby matter, which gets super hot and glows. But not all black holes are that easy to find. Some are hidden behind thick clouds, making them tricky to spot.

A new study suggests that there might be trillions of these supermassive black holes scattered across the universe. They believe every big galaxy likely has one at its center. But counting them all? That’s a whole different ball game. Instead, they’re focusing on nearby galaxies to get a better idea of how many are lurking around.

The researchers found that about 35% of supermassive black holes are hidden, which is a big jump from the previous estimate of 15%. They think the real number could even be as high as 50%. Using data from NASA’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite and other telescopes, they’ve been able to confirm some of these hidden black holes.

This new method could help scientists understand how often these black holes pop up and their role in forming galaxies. It might even shed some light on what’s going on at the center of our own Milky Way. One of the researchers, Poshak Gandhi, mentioned that if we didn’t have a supermassive black hole in our galaxy, we might see a lot more stars in the sky. Isn’t that wild?