A supermassive black hole at the centre of a distant Galaxy, devouring matter at a phenomenal rate -- over 40 times the theoretical limit, called the Eddington limit -- has been discovered by astronomers, using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Chandra X-ray Observatory. While peering into the galaxy using JWST's infrared vision, researchers discovered outflows of gas surrounding the hungry black hole, unlike anything ever observed and published the findings in the journal Nature Astronomy.
"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," Hyewon Suh of the International Gemini Observatory who led the study stated.
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Existing models challenged
Named LID-568, the black hole is seen just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang and provides valuable new insights into the mechanism of rapidly growing black holes in the early universe. Current theories surmise that supermassive black holes evolve from initial "seeds" formed either through the collapse of the universe's first stars (light seeds) or by direct gas cloud collapse (heavy seeds). However, these theories have lacked substantial observational backing so far.
"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," added astronomer and co-author of the study, Julia Scharwächter.
The new discovery not only challenges the existing models by suggesting that black holes are capable of exceeding the Eddington limits but also hints that supermassive black holes become bigger in their initial stages by consuming matter at an ungodly pace in a relatively short time.
The team that discovered the ravenous black hole is now planning follow-up studies with JWST to further expand on the newfound knowledge.
