A new discovery may have major consequences for how we view the universe.

According to data collected by NASA’s NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Telescope, black holes may be more influenced by the dusty debris within their region than previously thought.

The data, which includes observations of nearly 170,000 black holes, may eventually allow astronomers to better understand how black holes form and their role within the universe. Specifically, the discovery could challenge the unified theory of active supermassive black holes, developed in the 1970s, which explains why black holes appear different from one another. The unified model answers this question by proposing that every black hole is surrounded by a dusty, doughnut-shaped structure called a torus. 

“Our finding revealed a new feature about active black holes we never knew before, yet the details remain a mystery,” said Lin Yan of NASA’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “We hope our work will inspire future studies to better understand these fascinating objects.”

After collecting the data, scientists examined the nearly 170,000 active supermassive black holes, allowing them to measure the clustering of the galaxies containing both hidden and exposed black holes — the degree to which the objects clump together across the sky. If the unified model was true, and the hidden black holes would simply remain shrouded from view by doughnuts in the edge-on configuration, allowing researchers to view them as cluster in the same way as the exposed ones. The black holes would appear as doughnut structures and would retain random orientations and be distributed randomly.

However, astronomers say the results show something totally unexpected. The results showed the galaxies with hidden black holes are more clumped together than those of the exposed black holes.

The findings, if confirmed, may force astronomers to develop alternative theories as to why black holes are appearing different than originally thought. Some have speculated the difference may be further proof that dark matter and black holes are inextricably linked, however, further studies are needed.

Scientists have spent the last several years combing through data collected by NASA’s WISE mission. NASA launched the space telescope as part of an effort to scan the entire sky in infrared light, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images.