A black hole of inexplicable mass: JWST observations reveal a mature quasar at cosmic dawn

JUNE 21, 2024

by Max Planck Society



Artist's impression of the bright core region of a quasar, an active galaxy. The supermassive black hole in the center is surrounded by a bright disk of gas and dust. The dust component further out can obscure the view of the interior and shines predominantly in the mid-infrared range, light that can be analyzed by the James Webb Space Telescope. A bundled, high-energy particle beam protrudes into space from the immediate vicinity of the black hole perpendicular to the disk. Credit: T. Müller / MPIA

The James Webb Space Telescope observed a galaxy in a particularly young stage of the universe. Looking back into the past, it became clear that the light from the galaxy called J1120+0641 took almost as long to reach Earth as the universe has taken to develop to the present day. It is inexplicable how the black hole at its center could have weighed over a billion solar masses back then, as independent measurements have shown. The findings are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Recent observations of the material in close vicinity to the black hole were supposed to reveal a particularly efficient feeding mechanism, but they found nothing particular. This result is all the more extraordinary: it could mean that astrophysicists understand less about the development of galaxies than they thought. And yet they are by no means disappointing.

The first billion years of cosmic history pose a challenge: The earliest known black holes in the centers of galaxies have surprisingly large masses. How did they get so massive, so quickly? The new observations described here provide strong evidence against some proposed explanations, notably against an "ultra-effective feeding mode" for the earliest black holes.

The limits of supermassive black hole growth

Stars and galaxies have changed enormously over the past 13.8 billion years, the lifetime of the universe. Galaxies have grown larger and acquired more mass, either by consuming surrounding gas or (occasionally) by merging with each other. For a long time, astronomers assumed that the supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies would have grown gradually along with the galaxies themselves.

More:
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-black-hole-inexplicable-mass-jwst.html