Find a black hole in a food coma

Gas: It is what is in dinner. At least that was the case for the black hole in the early universe, which had to take a break after eating too much of its own nearly 13 billion years ago.

The black hole has a mass of 400 million times the mass of the Sun, as can be seen using the advanced Webb Space Telescope. Webb can see some of the oldest types of light in the universe by observing light at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths, which helps him penetrate interstellar dust clouds to see fainter, more distant light sources. According to a team of astronomers who have studied the black hole, it is essentially inert despite its young age, putting traditional models of black hole growth into practice. Researchers published Their findings today in nature.

“Although this black hole is inert, its enormous size enabled us to detect it,” said Ignace Godpalis, a researcher at the Kavli Institute of Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, and lead author of the study, at one of the universities. He releases. “Its inert state has allowed us to learn about the mass of the host galaxy as well. The early universe managed to produce some absolute monsters, even in relatively small galaxies.”

Black holes are thought to form from collapsing stars, and their intense gravitational fields accumulate around them. The material orbiting around the black hole glows, and it is called the accretion disk. Sometimes, matter falls into the black hole’s opening, causing a brilliant flash of light How does a black hole feed?.

Black hole accretion disks are full of crumbs for astronomers eager to better understand how objects from which light cannot escape become some of the densest and most massive entities in the universe. In 2021, a team published a study on a star Stuck in a death loop With a black hole. In 2022, a different team saw a black hole Star vomited After years of taking it. This year, the team determined that the black hole is the fastest growing It consumes sunshine per day And a separate team predicted accurately Black hole snack schedule It has a mass of 50 million times the mass of our Sun, and is about 860 million light-years from Earth.

There are two fundamental differences between that feeding black hole and the black hole recently investigated in Webb’s data. For example, the recently studied black hole is much larger, making up about 40% of the total mass of its host galaxy. The crux of the problem: The recently studied black hole barely eats, which changes previously existing ideas about black hole evolution.

“Black holes were likely born large, which could explain why Webb discovered massive black holes in the early universe,” said study co-author Roberto Maiolino, a researcher at the Kavli Institute and Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. He releases. “But another possibility is that they go through periods of hyperactivity, followed by long periods of dormancy.”

The idea is that black holes accumulate material rapidly, briefly exceeding their expected size limit. After that, the gravitational giants sit back and relax for about 100 million years before gobbling up more of the universe.

Black holes are difficult objects to study; Besides the extreme physics, there is the obvious problem of not emitting light. Fortunately, examining objects’ shadows and their effects on surrounding matter — including the accretion disk — enables astronomers to build better models that simulate some of the most extreme physics that space has to offer.