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00:04 Which formed first, galaxies or black holes?
00:07 That question has long plagued scientists who had no way of collecting the data needed to solve it.
00:11 That is until now.
00:13 The James Webb Space Telescope allows astronomers to look at light that was created in the relative moments after the Big Bang.
00:18 This has let them observe both the earliest galaxies forming as well as the earliest signs of black holes.
00:23 Now experts say it's likely that both galaxies and black holes coalesced at the same time.
00:29 Astronomer Joseph Silk likens these primordial black holes to the building blocks or seeds for early galaxies,
00:35 saying that this new discovery changes everything, telling Johns Hopkins University Press,
00:40 "They really boosted everything, like gigantic amplifiers of star formation,
00:44 which is a whole turnaround of what we thought possible before.
00:47 So much so that this could completely shake up our understanding of how galaxies form,"
00:52 with Silk adding that black hole outflow may have squashed gas clouds, compressing them into stars.
00:57 This new find also provides more support for a newer theory on black hole formation,
01:02 suggesting the giant clouds of uncollected matter may also collapse into supermassive black holes
01:07 rather than requiring a star or stellar collision for one to occur.
01:12 [ Music ]
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