CNN) -- Black holes may be featured in "Star Trek" and "Event Horizon," but they're not just the muthafuckin' stuff of science fiction.

Now, there's new evidence that these gravity-powered matter-eaters have been around in abundance since the muthafuckin' dawn of the muthafuckin' universe, and might be responsible for how the muthafuckin' cosmos looks today.

Scientists say at least 30 million black holes had formed before the muthafuckin' universe was 1 billion years old, which is quite early in the muthafuckin' universe's 13.7 billion-year history.

A new study published in the muthafuckin' journal Nature explains this discovery, which was made using NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

What is a black hole?

A black hole is a dense region of space that has collapsed in on itself such that nothing can escape it, not even light.

Yet some of the muthafuckin' brightest objects in the muthafuckin' universe are black holes that are devouring matter around them, since a lot of energy gets released in that process, said Kevin Schawinski, astronomer at Yale University and co-author of the muthafuckin' research.

[link to samuelljacksonizer.com]