Astronomers using the James Webb telescope have discovered the most distant active supermassive black hole ever recorded.
Panoramic view of more than 100,000 galaxies from the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) project. Image: NASA/ESA/CSA/Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin)/Micaela Bagley (UT Austin)/Rebecca Larson (UT Austin)/Alyssa Pagan (STScI))
The newly discovered black hole is also one of the smallest black holes to have existed since the early universe, with a mass of only about 9 million times that of the Sun, Live Science reported on July 10. The team observed the galaxy that hosts the black hole as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS). Called CEERS 1019, the galaxy dates back to when the universe was only about 570 million years old (the universe is currently thought to be 13.8 billion years old).
In addition to the black hole in CEERS 1019, the research team led by astronomer Steven Finkelstein at the University of Texas Austin also discovered two black holes that existed just 1 and 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang - the explosion that gave birth to the universe, as well as 11 galaxies that existed 470 - 675 million years after the Big Bang. The research results were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The black hole at the center of the galaxy CEERS 1019 has a mass of about 9 million times that of the Sun. That may sound like a lot, but many supermassive black holes can weigh billions of times more than the Sun. The existence of objects like the newly discovered black hole remains a mystery to scientists.
The reason is that supermassive black holes, either by merging with other black holes or by swallowing up surrounding matter, typically take much longer than 570 million years to grow. This means that even black holes with masses like the one at the center of the Milky Way (about 4.5 million times the mass of the Sun) should have formed much more recently.
The glow suggests that the black hole in CEERS 1019 is actively feeding on surrounding matter. Such “feeding” black holes are surrounded by streams of gas and dust called accretion disks. The gravitational pull of the black hole heats this material, causing the disk to glow brightly. In addition, the strong magnetic field drives the material toward the poles of the black hole, where it is occasionally ejected in twin jets traveling nearly the speed of light, creating extremely bright light.
Observing more of the black hole's intense radiation will reveal how quickly the parent galaxy is growing, and shed more light on its past. "A galaxy merger could have fueled the activity of this black hole, which could have led to increased star formation," said study co-author Jeyhan Kartaltepe, a CEERS team member and associate professor of astronomy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Scientists have long suspected the existence of relatively small-mass black holes in the early universe. However, the James Webb Space Telescope is the first to provide such detailed observations of them.
Thu Thao (According to Live Science )
Source link
Comment (0)