Chandra tags ancient black holes

Black holes may have been all over the early universe, according to new findings announced by NASA. A starfield gathered by its Chandra X-ray observatory, known as Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS), and analyzed in conjunction with the Hubble Space Telescope, has turned up a mass of previously-undiscovered black holes from when …

[E 2]

Question for the boffins

OK, we have 10K times more black holes than previously supposed, and we have that guy a few weeks ago who's results suggest that rogue planets are vastly more common than previously thought.

Are we closing in on the missing matter?

I ask because the WIMP thing just seems very suspicious to this amateur physicist.

[Rich 11]

(untitled)

> Are we closing in on the missing matter?

Only if there's an awful lot of it, and if it's concentrated around each galactic halo. You can probably discount rogue planets as providing enough mass (because you'd need hundreds per star), and the black holes described here probably ended up as the cores of galaxies.

[Ru]

"Are we closing in on the missing matter?"

Doubtful. There's an awful lot of it; far more than can be accounted for even with a whole load of extra black holes and planets.

[Britt Johnston]

keep looking

Using the theory of elegance, the dark matter concept is proof that we haven't found all the black holes yet.

[nyelvmark]

Culture shock

"growing like gangbusters"

Please forgive my ignorance, but what are gangbusters (it sounds like a TV show) and why are they notable for growth?

[dave 46]

I didn't know either

http://www.grammarist.com/usage/like-gangbusters/

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course...

...if they existed, blackholes would be less than 6000 years old.

[Elmer Phud]

Evidence of God!

God put them there to trap and punish those who would take to the skies trying to find Heaven. They are portals to Hell.

[Robert Carnegie]

Only if you're bad

According to the Disney film, [The Black Hole].

[Cormu]

classic movie

black hole , now i gotta go watch it :)

[Black Betty]

Supose Sagan hold the copyright on B&B.

Hence millions still to be found. Many, many, many millions.

Or is El-Reg being coming over all Brit pedantic about what a billion really is?