Galaxies like the Milky Way have massive black holes at their centres, but to the surprise of scientists, they turned out to have existed and coexisted in the early universe. Moreover, they were a kind of building blocks or “seeds” for each galaxy.

They were really speeding things up, like massive star formation accelerators, and it completely changes what we thought was possible before; so much so that it requires a revision of our understanding of galaxy formation.
– said Professor Joseph Silk from Johns Hopkins University.

Distant galaxies formed in the early universe turned out to be brighter than scientists expected. There were also a surprisingly large number of young stars and supermassive black holes. It is traditionally believed that black holes formed after the collapse of supermassive stars, and that galaxies illuminated the dark universe after the first stars appeared.

But analysis by Professor Silk’s team showed that black holes and galaxies coexisted and interacted with each other for the first 100 million years.

So how could stars have formed?

Professor Silk’s team believes that gas clouds coming out of black holes break apart the gas clouds, turning them into stars and significantly accelerating star formation. Otherwise, it is very difficult to understand where these bright galaxies come from because they were generally smaller in the early universe.

Due to the enormous gravitational force, powerful magnetic storms and plasma jets shine around black holes. In essence, they act like giant particle accelerators. Therefore, it is likely that “Webb” will notice more such black holes and bright galaxies than scientists previously expected.

According to the authors of the study, the young universe went through two stages.

At first, intense flows from black holes accelerated star formation, then slowed down. A few million years after the Big Bang, gas clouds collapsed due to magnetic storms from supermassive black holes, and new stars were born at a speed much faster than astronomers can observe in ordinary galaxies.

Over time, the star formation process slowed as the energy output moved into the energy-saving phase and the amount of gas available decreased. But the real question now is where black holes came from in the early universe. Astrophysicists have no idea about this yet.