The normal way seed black holes form - through the collapse of massive stars - can only make black holes up to a few thousand times as massive as the sun.Ī gargantuan seed black hole may have formed through the direct collapse of vast amounts of primordial hydrogen gas, says study coauthor Xiaohui Fan, also an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson. But astronomer Feige Wang of the University of Arizona and colleagues calculated that even if J0313-1806’s seed formed right after the first stars in the universe and grew as fast as possible, it would have needed a starting mass of at least 10,000 suns. Supermassive black holes are thought to grow from smaller seed black holes that gobble up matter. That makes J0313-1806 two times heavier and 20 million years older than the last record-holder for earliest known black hole ( SN: 12/6/17).įinding such a huge supermassive black hole so early in the universe’s history challenges astronomers’ understanding of how these cosmic beasts first formed, researchers reported January 12 at a virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society and in a paper posted at on January 8. The quasar, dubbed J0313-1806, dates back to when the universe was just 670 million years old, or about 5 percent of the universe’s current age. This active supermassive black hole, or quasar, boasts a mass of 1.6 billion suns and lies at the heart of a galaxy more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. We do not know exactly how this can be done, there are many ideas around but we don't have the answer yet and this is the next step.The most ancient black hole ever discovered is so big it defies explanation. "If a black hole is spinning at its maximum speed, then 29 percent of the mass energy of the black hole can be extracted. This enabled them to confirm that the rotational energy of spinning black holes powers these jets and that the magnetic field catalyses the process. "We found that the power of the jets is greater than the power of the accretion disk, therefore somehow rotational energy is extracted from the black hole," says Ghisellini. The authors found a clear correlation between jet power and accretion power. "I could see the amount of radiation produced by the accretion disk and the amount of radiation produced by the jets, so I could calculate the power connected with the jet, and the power connected with accretion," says Ghisellini. They compared the energy produced by the accretion process in the black holes and the radiation being produced by the jets. They examined data from optical telescopes and the Earth-orbiting Fermi gamma ray observatory. The new research, by Ghisellini and colleagues, looked at 217 blazars, which are quasars whose jets point towards Earth. However until now, there has only been limited evidence supporting this prediction. Scientific models had predicted that these jets are powered by both the magnetic field and the black hole's spin and mass. Powerful magnetic fields produced by the spiralling matter near the event horizon result in jets - such as quasars and blazars - shooting out perpendicular to the disk. Some of the energy is produced as this material is crushed, torn apart and superheated by friction - when this happens it forms an accretion disk of matter spiralling around the black hole's edge, called the event horizon. "That other form of energy is the rotation of the black hole itself."Īstronomers have long known that supermassive black holes - commonly found at the centre of galaxies - generate powerful jets of energy whenever stars, gas clouds and other material fall into them. "My work tends to demonstrate that we need something more than just matter falling onto a black hole to power these jets," says the study's lead author Dr Gabriele Ghisellini of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Italy. Power source How do the powerful jets of energy that shoot out of supermassive black holes - known as quasars and blazars - get enough energy to be visible for billions of light years across the universe?Ī new study, published today in the Nature supports the theory that a significant amount of the energy comes from the black hole's spin. Black holes change galaxies more than thought, Science Online,.Fast-flowing gas curtails black hole growth, Science Online,.Supermassive black hole trio discovered, Science Online,.
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