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This artist’s illustration shows a red, early-Universe dwarf galaxy that hosts a rapidly feeding black hole at its center. Using data from NASA's JWST and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of U.S. National Science Foundation NOIRLab astronomers have discovered this low-mass supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. It is accreting matter at a phenomenal rate — over 40 times the theoretical limit.
The theory goes that black holes accrete material, often from nearby stars. However the theory also suggests there is a limit to how big a black hole can grow due to accretion and certainly shouldn’t be as large as they are seen to be in the early Universe. Black holes it seems, are fighting back and don’t care about those limits! A recent study shows that supermassive black holes are growing at rates that defy the limits of current theory.
Black holes usually form from the collapse of a massive star. The origin of their larger cousins, the supermassive black holes found at the centre of most galaxies, remains a mystery. Theories suggest they grew over billions of years by consuming stars, gas and maybe even other black holes. Others suggest they formed from the primordial conditions of the early Universe or maybe from dense clusters of hot young early stars.
The black hole known as LID-568 was detected by a team of astronomers led by the International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer Hyewon Suh. It was detected in images from the James Webb Space Telescope following on from assessment of galaxies from the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s COSMOS legacy survey. The galaxies observed are bright X-ray sources but not visible in optical or near-infrared surveys.
The discovery provides an excellent opportunity for astronomers to study black holes in the early Universe and in particular those that challenge the Eddington limit theory. It would however suggest that the outflows of energy are acting to release energy that has built up during extreme accretion periods. Follow up observations are required.
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