In this 1-minute video, EarthSky’s Will Triggs tells you about a newly discovered black hole that’s consuming matter 40 times faster than scientists thought was possible.
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Supermassive black hole on a feeding frenzy
Supermassive black holes can be some billions of times the mass of our sun. They lie at the center of most galaxies and grow by feeding on nearby stars. But there’s a puzzle. How did supermassive black holes in the early universe get to be so big so fast? On November 4, 2024, astronomers at NOIRLab said they found a distant supermassive black hole consuming material 40 times faster than scientists believed was possible. This feeding frenzy might help explain why supermassive black holes could grow so big early in the age of the universe.
The scientists published their peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature Astronomy on November 4, 2024.
Meet the hungry black hole
LID-568 is the name of the supermassive black hole that lies at the center of a dwarf galaxy existing just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. Lead author Hyewon Suh of NOIRLab and team used the Webb space telescope to peer closely at this supermassive black hole. It showed up intensely in X-rays during a Chandra survey.
Webb’s NIRSpec camera can produce an entire spectrum from each individual pixel. This was crucial in getting data from the early universe. Co-author Emanuele Farina at Gemini International Observatory and NOIRLab said:
Owing to its faint nature, the detection of LID-568 would be impossible without JWST. Using the integral field spectrograph was innovative and necessary for getting our observation.
Thus, these observations allowed the team to discover strong gas outflows at the central black hole. These were likely due to a single episode of rapid accretion. Suh said:
This serendipitous result added a new dimension to our understanding of the system and opened up exciting avenues for investigation.
The Eddington limit is not the limit
Previously, astronomers used the Eddington limit to explain the balance between the inward pull of gravity and the outward push of radiation. A black hole can push enough material away that it will cut off its own supply and therefore stop its growth. But LID-568 seems to be consuming matter at 40 times its Eddington limit.
Co-author Julia Scharwächter of NOIRLab said:
This black hole is having a feast. This extreme case shows that a fast-feeding mechanism above the Eddington limit is one of the possible explanations for why we see these very heavy black holes so early in the universe.
So the Eddington limit is not always the limit. LID-568 has shown that black holes can go on feeding frenzies. Suh said:
The discovery of a super-Eddington accreting black hole suggests that a significant portion of mass growth can occur during a single episode of rapid feeding.
So now astronomers will look for more supermassive black holes undergoing feeding frenzies in the early universe. They will appear as nothing more than a few pixels on the best images of the sky available.
Bottom line: A supermassive black hole in the early universe went on a feeding frenzy. It consumied 40 times more material than astronomers thought was possible. This discovery could help answer the puzzle as to why supermassive holes could grow so big so early on in the history of our universe.
Source: A super-Eddington-accreting black hole ~1.5?Gyr after the Big Bang observed with JWST
Via NOIRLab