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class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-105113"><a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/contact/">Contact</a></li> </ul></div> </div>   <div class="uu-search-toggle"> <div class="search-btn"><i class="far fa-search"></i></div> </div>   <div class="uu-sidenav-toggle"> <div id="sidenav_toggle_btn" class="hamburger uu-hamburger"> <div class="hamburger-box"> <div class="hamburger-inner"></div> </div> </div> </div>  </div> </header>  <div id="primary" class="content-area"> <main id="main" class="site-main">  <article id="post-111137" class="atu-post post-111137 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-facultystaff category-innovate-initiatives category-latest-stories category-news-releases category-research category-science-technology tag-active-galactic-nucleus tag-astrophysics tag-black-holes tag-college-of-science tag-dark-energy-spectroscopic-instrument tag-department-of-physics-and-astronomy tag-desi tag-dwarf-galaxies tag-galaxy-evolution tag-gas tag-intermediate-mass-black-hole tag-milky-way tag-noir-lab tag-ragadeepika-pucha tag-stars tag-universe tag-yao-yuan-mao" > <div class="atu-post-img-container"> <div class="atu-post-img" style="background-image:url(https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19130812/NOIRLab_header.jpg); background-position:center center;"> <div class="atu-post-header"> <div class="atu-post-meta"> <span class="atu-post-main-cat"><a data-cat="913" href="https://attheu.utah.edu/category/research/">Research</a></span> <span class="atu-post-time"><time class="timeago" datetime="1739999016">February 19, 2025</time></span> </div> <div class="atu-post-title"> <h1>‘Vast discovery’ of black holes in dwarf galaxies</h1> </div> <div class="atu-post-authors"> <div class="atu-post-author-name"> Lisa Potter<span> - research communications specialist, University of Utah Communications</span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>  <div class="entry-content"> <div><span lang="EN"><em>Adapted from a release by Josie Fenske at NSF <a href="https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2508/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NOIRLab.</a></em></span></div> <div></div> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Using early data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (<a href="https://noirlab.edu/public/projects/desi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DESI</a>), a team of scientists, led by University of Utah postdoctoral researcher Ragadeepika Pucha, have compiled the largest sample ever of dwarf galaxies that host an actively feeding black hole, as well as the most extensive collection of intermediate-mass black hole candidates to date. This dual achievement not only expands scientists’ understanding of the black hole population in the universe but also sets the stage for further explorations the formation of the first black holes to form in the universe and their role in galaxy evolution.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">With DESI’s early data, the team was able to obtain an unprecedented dataset that includes the spectra of 410,000 galaxies, including roughly 115,000 dwarf galaxies—small, diffuse galaxies containing thousands to several billions of stars and very little gas. This extensive set would allow Pucha and her team to explore the complex interplay between black hole evolution and dwarf galaxy evolution.</p> <figure id="attachment_111147" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 360px"><a href="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-111147"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class=" wp-image-111147" src="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c.jpg" alt="A grid of galaxies candidates with active black holes." width="360" height="180" srcset="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c.jpg 2263w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c-300x150.jpg 300w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c-1024x511.jpg 1024w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c-768x383.jpg 768w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c-600x300.jpg 600w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c-1536x767.jpg 1536w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125123/noirlab2508c-2048x1023.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px" /></a><figcaption class="caption-bottom"><p class="wp-caption-text">This mosaic shows a series of images featuring intermediate-mass black hole candidates, arranged in increasing order of stellar mass, captured with the Subaru Telescope’s Hyper Suprime-Cam.</p></figcaption></figure> <p style="font-weight: 400;">While astrophysicists are fairly confident that all massive galaxies, like our Milky Way, host black holes at their centers, the picture becomes unclear as you move toward the low-mass end of the spectrum. Finding black holes is a challenge on its own but identifying them in dwarf galaxies is even more difficult due to their small sizes and the limited ability of our current instruments to resolve the regions close to these objects. An actively feeding black hole, however, is easier to spot.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">“When a black hole at the center of a galaxy starts feeding, it unleashes a tremendous amount of energy into its surroundings, transforming into what we call an active galactic nucleus,” said Pucha. “This dramatic activity serves as a beacon, allowing us to identify hidden black holes in these small galaxies.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The study is online as a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.00091" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pre-print</a> ahead of publication in The Astrophysical Journal.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">DESI is a state-of-the-art instrument that can capture light from 5,000 galaxies simultaneously. It was constructed, and is operated, with funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. DESI is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) <a href="https://noirlab.edu/public/programs/kitt-peak-national-observatory/nicholas-mayall-4m-telescope/">Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope</a> at the NSF <a href="https://kpno.noirlab.edu/">Kitt Peak National Observatory</a>, a program of NSF NOIRLab. The program is now in its fourth of five years surveying the sky and is set to observe roughly 40 million galaxies and quasars by the time the project ends.</p> <figure id="attachment_111151" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 282px"><a href="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-scaled.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-111151"><img decoding="async" class=" wp-image-111151" src="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-scaled.jpg" alt="Two people post in an office with complicated equations in the background on a whiteboard." width="282" height="298" srcset="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-scaled.jpg 2425w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-284x300.jpg 284w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-970x1024.jpg 970w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-768x811.jpg 768w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-600x634.jpg 600w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-1455x1536.jpg 1455w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19133605/Mao_Pucha_cropped-1940x2048.jpg 1940w" sizes="(max-width: 282px) 100vw, 282px" /></a><figcaption class="caption-bottom"><p class="wp-caption-text">Yao-Yuan Mao (left), assistant professor in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, and Ragadeepika Pucha (right), postdoctoral researcher.</p></figcaption></figure> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The <a href="https://www.desi.lbl.gov/">DESI project</a> is an international collaboration of more than 900 researchers from over 70 institutions around the world and is managed by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The team identified an astonishing 2,500 candidate dwarf galaxies hosting an active galactic nucleus (AGN)—the largest sample ever discovered. The significantly higher fraction of dwarf galaxies hosting an AGN (2%) relative to previous studies (about 0.5%) is an exciting result and suggests scientists have been missing a substantial number of low-mass, undiscovered black holes.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">In a separate search through the DESI data, the team identified 300 intermediate-mass black hole candidates—the most extensive collection to date. Most black holes are either lightweight (less than 100 times the mass of our sun) or supermassive (more than 1 million times the mass of our sun). The black holes in between the two extremes are poorly understood but are theorized to be the relics of the very first black holes formed in the early universe, and the seeds of the supermassive black holes that lie at the center of large galaxies today. Yet they remain elusive, with only around 100-150 intermediate-mass black hole candidates known until now. With the large population discovered by DESI, scientists now have a powerful new dataset to use to study these cosmic enigmas.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">“The technological design of DESI was important for this project, particularly its small fiber size, which allowed us to better zoom in on the center of galaxies and identify the subtle signatures of active black holes,” said Stéphanie Juneau, associate astronomer at NSF NOIRLab and co-author of the paper. “With other fiber spectrographs with larger fibers, more starlight from the galaxy’s outskirts comes in and dilutes the signals we’re searching for. This explains why we managed to find a higher fraction of active black holes in this work relative to previous efforts.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Typically, black holes found in dwarf galaxies are expected to be within the intermediate-mass regime. But intriguingly, only 70 of the newly discovered intermediate-mass black hole candidates overlap with dwarf AGN candidates. This adds another layer of excitement to the findings and raises questions about black hole formation and evolution within galaxies.</p> <figure id="attachment_111146" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 340px"><a href="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-scaled.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-111146"><img decoding="async" class=" wp-image-111146" src="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-scaled.jpg" alt="An illustration of dwarf galaxies with active black holes." width="340" height="192" srcset="https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-300x169.jpg 300w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-768x432.jpg 768w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-600x338.jpg 600w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/19125118/noirlab2508a-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 340px) 100vw, 340px" /></a><figcaption class="caption-bottom"><p class="wp-caption-text">This artist’s illustration depicts a dwarf galaxy that hosts an active galactic nucleus — an actively feeding black hole. In the background are many other dwarf galaxies hosting active black holes, as well as a variety of other types of galaxies hosting intermediate-mass black holes.</p></figcaption></figure> <p style="font-weight: 400;">“For example, is there any relationship between the mechanisms of black hole formation and the types of galaxies they inhabit?” Pucha said. “Our wealth of new candidates will help us delve deeper into these mysteries, enriching our understanding of black holes and their pivotal role in galaxy evolution.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Pucha and other U physicists, including <a href="https://yymao.github.io" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yao-Yuan Mao</a>, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, are digging deeper into this DESI dataset to estimate the fraction of dwarf galaxies that indeed host a black hole. Their team is one of countless others around the world that will be benefited by this new dataset.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">“This is one of the most exciting aspects of modern astronomy. Astronomers understand that not only do large survey datasets enable the curators themselves to do cool science, but it benefits everyone in the astronomy community,” said Mao, who is a co-author of the study. “By making this dataset publicly available, the astronomy community can explore topics that we would have never thought about before.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Kyle Dawson of the University of Utah was also a coauthor of the study. For a full list of contributors, refer to the NOIR Lab’s <a href="https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2508/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release</a>.</p> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"><iframe loading="lazy" title="Cosmoview Episode 94: DESI Uncovers 300 New Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Plus 2500 New Active Bl..." width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C-ZY6cCodoY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> <p><em>Images and Videos: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Legacy Surveys/D. Lang (Perimeter Institute)/NAOJ/HSC Collaboration/D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab) & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)/R. Proctor (NSF NOIRLab)/R.T. Sparks/ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Bartmann (NSF NOIRLab)</em><br /> <em>Music: Stellardrone – Airglow</em></p>  <div class="section-title"> <h3>MEDIA & PR CONTACTS</h3> </div> <ul class="atu-post-contacts"> <li> <span class="name">Lisa Potter</span> <span class="title">Research communications specialist, University of Utah Communications</span><br> <span class="phone">949-533-7899</span> <span class="email"><a href="mailto:lisa.potter@utah.edu">lisa.potter@utah.edu</a></span> </li> <li> <span class="name">Ragadeepika Pucha</span> <span class="title">postdoctoral researcher, Department of Physics & Astronomy, College of Science</span><br> <span class="email"><a href="mailto:dr.raga.pucha@gmail.com">dr.raga.pucha@gmail.com</a></span> </li> <li> <span class="name">Yao-Yuan Mao</span> <span class="title">assistant professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy, College of Science</span><br> <span class="email"><a href="mailto:yymao@astro.utah.edu">yymao@astro.utah.edu</a></span> </li> </ul>  </div>   <footer class="entry-footer"> <span class="cat-links">Posted in <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/category/facultystaff/" rel="category tag">Faculty/Staff</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/category/president/innovate-initiatives/" rel="category tag">Innovate Initiatives</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/category/latest-stories/" rel="category tag">Latest Stories</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/category/news-releases/" rel="category tag">News Releases</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/category/research/" rel="category tag">Research</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/category/science-technology/" rel="category tag">Science & Technology</a></span><span class="tags-links">Tagged <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/active-galactic-nucleus/" rel="tag">active galactic nucleus</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/astrophysics/" rel="tag">astrophysics</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/black-holes/" rel="tag">black holes</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/college-of-science/" rel="tag">College of Science</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/dark-energy-spectroscopic-instrument/" rel="tag">Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/department-of-physics-and-astronomy/" rel="tag">Department of Physics and Astronomy</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/desi/" rel="tag">DESI</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/dwarf-galaxies/" rel="tag">dwarf galaxies</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/galaxy-evolution/" rel="tag">galaxy evolution</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/gas/" rel="tag">gas</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/intermediate-mass-black-hole/" rel="tag">intermediate-mass black hole</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/milky-way/" rel="tag">Milky Way</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/noir-lab/" rel="tag">NOIR Lab</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/ragadeepika-pucha/" rel="tag">Ragadeepika Pucha</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/stars/" rel="tag">stars</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/universe/" rel="tag">universe</a>, <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/tag/yao-yuan-mao/" rel="tag">Yao-Yuan Mao</a></span> </footer>  </article>  </main> </div>  <div class="more-articles"> <div class="section-title"> <h3>RELATED ARTICLES</h3> </div> <section class="owl-carousel atu-more-articles-post-loop"> <div id="post-111183" class="uu-card"> <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/health-medicine/gene-variant-could-protect-against-rare-genetic-seizure-disorder-fruit-fly-research-finds/" class="uu-card-img" style="background-image:url('https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20133239/fruit-flies_feature.jpg');"></a> <div class="uu-card-details"> <div class="uu-card-body"> <h3 class="uu-card-title"><a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/health-medicine/gene-variant-could-protect-against-rare-genetic-seizure-disorder-fruit-fly-research-finds/">Gene variant could protect 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