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Black holes may grow quietly alongside galaxies even without violent mergers
First reported Source: Phys.orgLast editorial activity
Full credit
File:Blue Marble Western Hemisphere.jpg / NASA images by Reto Stöckli, based on data from NASA and NOAA. Instrument: Terra - MODIS / Earth Observatory: Twin Blue Marbles / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain / https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Marble_Western_Hemisphere.jpgSource page
What happened
Astronomers analyzed 2,435 galaxies hosting actively feeding black holes using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). Among them, they identified 546 "bulgeless" galaxies—systems with little or no central stellar bulge. Their paper, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, suggests that galaxies without a central bulge grow black holes just as effectively as galaxies that have one—a surprising sign that black holes don't need galaxy mergers to grow normally.
Sources & evidence
- Phys.org Reporting source
Black holes may grow quietly alongside galaxies even without violent mergers ↗
https://phys.org/news/2026-10-black-holes-quietly-galaxies-violent.html