By Ron Cowen
A new study offers the first direct evidence that supermassive black holes grow along with the galaxies they inhabit. Astronomers had suspected as much, but because most galaxies today are billions of years old, the notion was difficult to test.
In their work, Michael R. Merrifield of the University of Nottingham in England and his colleagues sought galaxies spanning a range of ages. In this way, they could determine how black holes that lurk at the hearts of these galaxies evolved over time.