Black holes shed light on galaxy formation

Astronomers are concluding that monstrous black holes weren't simply born big but instead grew on a measured diet of gas and stars controlled by their host galaxies in the early formative years of the universe. These results, gleaned from a NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope census of more than 30 galaxies, are painting a broad picture of a galaxy's evolution and its long and intimate relationship with its central giant black hole . Though much more analysis remains, an initial look at Hubble evidence favors the idea that titanic black holes did not precede a galaxy's birth but instead co-evolved with the galaxy by trapping a surprisingly exact percentage of the mass of the central hub of stars and gas in a galaxy.