Scientists have discovered that some supermassive black holes rotate much more rapidly than expected. The discovery came as the result of a new form of "black hole archeology" that links black hole spins to the gas and dust they have consumed to grow over 7 billion years of cosmic history.
The findings, courtesy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) suggest a few things. For one, the early universe may have been more orderly than previously suspected. And secondly, the growth of supermassive black holes through the merger chain of progressively larger and larger black holes (triggered as galaxies collide and merge) may be supplemented by the objects voraciously feasting on surrounding gas and dust.
