- An important indicator of supermassive growth Black Hole – X-ray emissions – were discovered in very distant galaxies.
- This galaxy, UHZ1, lies 13.2 billion light-years away and was seen when the universe was only 3% of its current age.
- NASAChandra X-ray Observatory and james webb space telescope We worked together to make this discovery.
- This is considered the best evidence to date that some of the earliest black holes formed from giant gas clouds.
NASA telescope discovers record-breaking black hole
This image reveals the most distant black hole ever seen in X-rays and could shed light on the formation of the earliest supermassive black holes in the universe. The discovery was made using X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (shown in purple) and infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope (shown in red, green, and blue).
Galaxy distance and observation
The very distant black hole is located in the galaxy UHZ1, in the direction of the galaxy cluster Abel 2744. The galaxy cluster is approximately 3.5 billion light years from Earth. But Webb’s data reveals that UHZ1 is much further away than Abel 2744. UHZ1 is located about 13.2 billion light-years away and was seen when the Universe was only 3% of its current age.
Gravitational lensing and X-ray detection
Using two weeks of observations from Chandra, researchers were able to detect X-ray emissions from UHZ1. This is a clear sign of a supermassive black hole growing at the center of the galaxy. The X-ray signal was extremely weak, and Chandra was able to detect it despite observing it for such a long time because of a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, which magnifies the signal by a factor of four. did.
Imaging technology and direction
The purple part of the image shows X-rays from the large amount of hot gas inside Abell 2744. The infrared image shows hundreds of galaxies in the cluster, along with some stars in the foreground. Inset zooms in on a small region centered on UHZ1. The small object in the Webb image is the distant galaxy UHZ1, and the center of the Chandra image shows X-rays from material close to the supermassive black hole at the center of UHZ1. The large size of the X-ray source compared to infrared images of the galaxy is because the X-ray source represents the smallest size that Chandra can resolve. X-rays actually come from a region much smaller than a galaxy.
Different smoothing was applied to the full-field and close-up Chandra images. Smoothing over many pixels was performed on the large image in order to not display the weak X-ray point sources like UHZ1, but instead to emphasize the weak cluster emission. There isn’t much smoothing applied to the close-up, so you can see the faint X-ray source. The image is oriented with north pointing 42.5 degrees to the vertical right.
Significance of discovery
This discovery helps us understand how some supermassive black holes (those that contain up to billions of solar masses and reside at the centers of galaxies) reach their enormous masses shortly after the Big Bang. is important above. Do they form directly from the collapse of giant gas clouds, producing black holes that weigh about 10,000 to 100,000 suns? Or do they form black holes that weigh only about 10 to 100 suns? Did it come from the explosion of the first star that produced the hole?
Research results and theoretical implications
A team of astronomers has found strong evidence that the newly discovered black hole at UHZ1 was born gigantic. Based on the brightness and energy of its X-rays, they estimate its mass to be between 10 million and 100 million suns. This mass range is similar to that of all the stars in the galaxy in which it resides, and the black holes at the centers of galaxies in nearby universes, which typically contain only about one-tenth the mass It is in marked contrast. Stars of the host galaxy.
The black hole’s large mass when it was young, plus the amount of X-rays it produces, and the brightness of the galaxy detected by Webb all led to a theory about “supermassive black holes” forming directly from black holes in 2017. consistent with the prediction. Collapse of a huge gas cloud.
Ongoing research and collaboration
The researchers plan to use this result, combined with other results coming in from the Webb and data from other telescopes, to uncover a bigger picture of the early Universe.
The paper explaining the results is natural astronomy. Authors include Akos Bogdan (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard University & Smithsonian Institution), Andy Goulding (princeton university), Priyamvada Natarajan (yale university), Orsolya Kovacs (Masaryk University, Czech Republic), Grant Tremblay (CFA), Urmila Chadayamuri (CfA), Marta Volontelli (Paris Institute of Astrophysics, France), Ralph Kraft (CfA), William Forman (CfA), Christine Jones (CfA), Eugene Churazov ( Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Germany), Irina Zhuravleva (University of Chicago).
The Webb data used in both papers is part of a survey called Ultradeep Nirspec and nirCam ObserVations (UNCOVER) before the Reionization Era. A paper led by UNCOVER team member Andy Golding, Astrophysics Journal Letter. Co-authors include Bogdan and Natarajan, in addition to other members of his UNCOVER team. A detailed interpretive paper comparing the observed properties of UHZ1 with theoretical models of supermassive black hole galaxies is currently under review and a preprint is available here.
References:
“Evidence for a heavy seed origin of early supermassive black holes from az ≈ 10 X-ray quasars” Akos Bogdan, Andy D. Golding, Priyamvada Natarajan, Orsoriya E. Kovacs, Grant R. Tremblay, Urmila By Chadayamuri, Marta Bolontelli, Ralph P. Kraft, William R. Forman, Christine Jones, Eugene Chulasov, Irina Zhuravleva, November 6, 2023, natural astronomy.
DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02111-9
“UNCOVER: The Growth of the First Massive Black Holes from JWST/NIRSpec—Spectroscopic redshift confirmation of X-ray emitting AGNs at Z = 10.1” Andy D. Goulding, Jenny E. Greene, David J. Setton, Ivo Labbe, Written by: Rachel Besancon, Tim B. Miller, Hakim Atek, Akos Bogdan, Gabriel Brammer, Irina Chemelinska, Sam E. Cutler, Pratika Dayal, Yoshinobu Fudamoto, Seiji Fujimoto, Lukas J. Furtak , Vasily Kokolev, Graf Fraar, Joel Reha, Danilo Marchesini, Priyamvada Natarajan, Erica Nelson, Pascal A. Esch, Richard Pan, Casey Papovic, Sedona H. Price, Peter van Dokkum , Binji Wang, Binghun Wang, John R. Weaver, Katherine E. Whittaker, Adi Zitlin, September 22, 2023, Astrophysics Journal Letter.
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/acf7c5
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center manages scientific operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb unravels the mysteries of our solar system, looks to distant worlds around other stars, and explores the mysterious structure and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA and its partner ESA (european space agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.