Dark matter could have helped make supermassive black holes in the early universe

Supermassive black holes typically take billions of years to form. But the James Webb Space Telescope is finding them not that long after the Big Bang — before they should have had time to form. Astrophysicists have discovered that if dark matter decays, the photons it emits keep the hydrogen gas hot enough for gravity to gather it into giant clouds and eventually condense it into a supermassive black hole. In addition to explaining the existence of very early supermassive black holes, the finding lends support for the existence of a kind of dark matter capable of decaying into particles such as photons. …read more