A mysterious cosmic hum may come from 13-billion-year-old dark stars

Today’s mysterious gravitational-wave background may preserve clues about how the Universe’s first supermassive black holes formed. Descendants of hypothetical Dark Stars could be responsible for a major portion of the signal, offering a surprising new way to investigate cosmic dawn and dark matter. A mysterious cosmic hum may come from 13-billion-year-old dark stars.

A mysterious cosmic hum may come from 13-billion-year-old dark stars | Science News from research organizations A mysterious cosmic hum may come from 13-billion-year-old dark stars A mysterious gravitational-wave hum detected today may be an echo of the first giant black holes born more than 13 billion years ago. Share: Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email FULL STORY A faint gravitational-wave background detected with pulsars may contain echoes of the first supermassive black holes. Credit: AI/ com A faint background of extremely low frequency gravitational waves detected through networks of pulsars could contain clues to events that unfolded more than 13 billion years ago, including the emergence of some of the Universe’s earliest supermassive black holes.

In a study published as a Letter in Physical Review D, Colgate University researchers Sohan Ghodla and Cosmin Ilie examined whether supermassive black holes that originated in the early Universe could eventually produce a significant share of the gravitational wave background now being measured by Pulsar Timing Arrays, or PTAs. The findings connect two areas of astronomy that may at first seem far apart. One involves observations of surprisingly massive black holes that already existed when the Universe was young.