A new initiative led by an international team aims to use the Hubble Telescope to map the areas around black holes to understand how they help create the structure of our universe.

This team includes researchers from the University of Haifa and the University of Tel Aviv.

Dr Shai Kaspi, a researcher in the Department of Astrophysics at Tel Aviv University, spoke with i24NEWS to discuss why understanding black holes is essential.

“We are studying what is called a supermassive black hole. Each of the galaxies we have in the universe has a supermassive black hole at the center,” Kaspi said.

“In order to know how galaxies formed, we need to understand their center. ”

You can’t see inside a black hole because light can’t escape it, so the team is studying the material around it, such as accretion discs (a flow similar to a black hole). disc around any astronomical object), to understand interstellar bodies further.

By studying the light that forms from accretion disks, Kaspi says, you can learn a lot about the black hole, such as its size and mass.

“One thing we still don’t know is what formed first: the galaxy or the black hole in the center of it.”

Kaspi’s personal point of view is that they were trained at the same time.