Astronomers at Durham University have used supermassive black holes to find that the universe is growing much more quickly than was previously thought.

It is the first time black holes have been used to measure the expansion of the cosmos and revealed ground-breaking results suggesting we may need to completely re-think our theories of universe growth.

The North East scientists used the intense light emitted by the black holes as beacons which can be used to measure distance by tracking them as the universe grows and they move further away.

Dr Elisabeta Lusso, from the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy at Durham University, said: "Black holes are the most luminous persistent sources of the universe and allow us to measure its expansion rate at very early times.

"Our results suggest that the early expansion of the universe is different from that predicted by the Standard Cosmological Model.

Image issued by Durham University of Galaxy IC 3639 obscured with active galactic nucleus
A supermassive black hole

"We may need to explore new physics, for example rethinking the potential properties of dark energy."

The Standard Cosmological Model is currently used to explain the expansion of the universe.

The study plotted 1,600 supermassive black holes at different points in the universe to study its expansion rate up to one billion years after the Big Bang.

The Durham team suggest a possible explanation might be that the density of dark energy – the mysterious force driving the expansion - changes through time.

Dr Guido Risaliti, of the Università degli Studi di Firenze, whose scientists co-led the study, said: "One of the possible solutions to the expansion of the early Universe would be to invoke an evolving dark energy, with a density that increases as time goes by.

"This would imply an expansion rate of the universe in agreement with our measurements.

"However, this is only one of the many models (all including new physics) proposed by the theorists, and much more work is needed to find a unique solution."

The researchers said the next step in their study was to try to identify and measure the distance of black holes that exist even closer to the birth of the universe.