It Seems Over A Third Of All Ultra-Massive Black Holes In The Known Universe Are Deeply Hidden, In Vast, Torus-Shaped Dust Blankets...

In part in an effort to "find" the so-called "missing mass" of the then known Universe (such that the Universe doesn't forever just fly apart into an infinite time period), but eventually collapses back into a closed system / singularity -- to restart, from another "big bang", JPL operated a space-based 'scope for ten months in 1983, looking at the whole sky, in infrared.

This ultimately led to a ground-based telescope studies, in the last few years, in which hundreds of initial targets were sorted.

Some of them turned out to be not heavily obscured black holes but galaxies with high rates of star formation that emit a similar infrared glow. So the authors of the new study used visible-light telescopes to identify those galaxies and separate them from the hidden black holes. The result confirms that at least one third of these super massive giants are never going to emit visible wavelength light, as their torus shaped dust clouds blot them out, when viewed edge on. Here's the latest -- but incrementally increases the chances that the math works for the Universe to be a closed system, in a potentially endless series of expansion / collapse epochs:

. . .To confirm edge-on, heavily obscured black holes, the researchers relied on NASA’s NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array), an X-ray observatory also managed by JPL. X-rays are radiated by some of the hottest material around the black hole. Lower-energy X-rays are absorbed by the surrounding clouds of gas and dust, while the higher-energy X-rays observed by NuSTAR can penetrate and scatter off the clouds. Detecting these X-rays can take hours of observation, so scientists working with NuSTAR first need a telescope like IRAS to tell them where to look. . . .

The new study published in the Astrophysical Journal found that about 35% of supermassive black holes are heavily obscured, meaning the surrounding clouds of gas and dust are so thick they block even low-energy X-ray light.

Comparable searches have previously found less than 15% of supermassive black holes are so obscured. Scientists think the true split should be closer to 50/50 based on models of how galaxies grow. . . .

Onward -- smiling into the chilly sunshine, after a new one inch dusting of fluffy snows overnight (twice at around 7:15 am local). . . be excellent to one another. And I cannot resist noting that Jack Smith confirmed what we all knew -- and Pete Hegseth shows himself to be the lil' troll he is, at hearings today. Ugh.

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