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The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed starlight from two ancient galaxies with quasars less than a billion years after the Big Bang, revealing a black hole with almost a billion times the mass of the Sun. . This groundbreaking discovery raises questions about the early Universe and the order in which supermassive black holes and galaxies formed.
The James Webb Space Telescope has released the first images showing starlight from two massive galaxies with actively growing black holes known as quasars. big bang.
Recent research published in journals Natureshows that the black hole has a mass nearly a billion times that of our Sun, and its host galaxy nearly 100 times more massive, a ratio similar to that found in the recent Universe. The powerful combination of the Subaru telescope and his JWST has opened new avenues for studying the distant universe.
The existence of such a massive black hole in the distant universe has created more questions than answers for astrophysicists. How could these black holes become so large when the universe was so young? Even more puzzling, observations in the local universe show that the masses of supermassive black holes and their It has been shown that there is a clear relationship between the galaxy and the much larger galaxy in which it exists. Galaxies and black holes are completely different in size, but which comes first, the black hole or the galaxy? This is a cosmic-scale “chicken-and-egg” problem.
![HSC J2236+0032](https://scitechdaily.com/images/HSC-J22360032-777x255.jpg 777w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/HSC-J22360032-400x131.jpg 400w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/HSC-J22360032-768x252.jpg 768w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/HSC-J22360032-1536x505.jpg 1536w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/HSC-J22360032-2048x673.jpg 2048w)
JWST NIRCam 3.6 μm image of HSC J2236+0032. Zoomed-out image, quasar image, and host galaxy image after quasar light subtraction (from left to right). Image scale is shown in each panel in light years.Credit: Ding, Onoue, Silverman, et al.
Project Researcher Ding Shuheng and Professor John Silverman of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), and Masafusa Onoue, Kavli Astrophysics Fellow at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University (PKU-KIAA). A team of international researchers led by the author set out to answer this question. james webb space telescope (JWST), released in December 2021.
By studying the relationship between host galaxies and black holes in the early universe, scientists can observe their formation and learn how they relate to each other.
While quasars are bright, their host galaxies are dark, making it difficult for researchers to detect the galaxy’s dim light in the quasar’s glare, especially at great distances. Before JWST came along, hubble space telescope We were able to detect the bright quasar’s host galaxy when the universe was just under 3 billion years old, but not much younger than that.
![James Webb Space Telescope's mirrors unfolded](https://scitechdaily.com/images/James-Webb-Space-Telescope-Mirror-Deployed-777x569.jpg 777w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/James-Webb-Space-Telescope-Mirror-Deployed-400x293.jpg 400w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/James-Webb-Space-Telescope-Mirror-Deployed-768x563.jpg 768w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/James-Webb-Space-Telescope-Mirror-Deployed-1536x1125.jpg 1536w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/James-Webb-Space-Telescope-Mirror-Deployed-2048x1500.jpg 2048w)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has fully deployed its primary mirror to the same configuration it will have in space.Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
JWST’s superior sensitivity and ultra-clear images at infrared wavelengths ultimately allowed researchers to advance these studies to the time when quasars and galaxies first formed. Just a few months after JWST began normal operations, the research team discovered two quasars, HSC J2236, at redshifts of 6.40 and 6.34, about 860 million years after the creation of the Universe. +0032 and HSC J2255+0251 were observed.
These two quasars were discovered during the deep exploration program of the 8.2-meter Subaru telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The relatively low luminosity of these quasars makes them prime targets for measuring the properties of their host galaxies, and the successful detection of their hosts marks the first time starlight has ever been detected within a quasar. represents the earliest period.
![Xuheng Ding, John Silverman, Masafusa Onoe](https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-777x437.jpg 777w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-400x225.jpg 400w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-768x432.jpg 768w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-1536x864.jpg 1536w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-180x101.jpg 180w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-260x146.jpg 260w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-373x210.jpg 373w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-120x67.jpg 120w,https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue.jpg 1678w)
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) project researcher Ding Xuheng, Professor John Silverman, Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (PKU-KIAA) Kavli Astrophysics Fellow Masafusa Onoue (from left) .Credit: Kavli IPMU, Kavli IPMU, Masafusa Onoe
Images of the two quasars were taken at infrared wavelengths of 3.56 and 1.50 microns using JWST’s NIRCam instrument, and after careful modeling to subtract glare from the accreting black hole, the host galaxy was revealed. Ta. The host galaxy’s stellar signature is also seen in the spectrum obtained for J2236+0032 by JWST’s NIRSPEC, further supporting the host galaxy detection.
Photometric analysis of the host galaxies reveals that these two quasar host galaxies are massive: 130 billion and 34 billion times the mass of the Sun, respectively. Measuring the velocity of turbulent gas near the quasar from NIRSPEC spectra suggests that the black holes powering the quasar are also massive, 140 and 200 million times the mass of the Sun. The ratio of Black Hole The mass relative to the mass of the host galaxy is similar to the mass of galaxies in the more recent past, suggesting that the relationship between the black hole and its host was already present 860 million years after the Big Bang .
Ding, Silverman, Onue, and their colleagues will continue this work with a larger sample using the upcoming Cycle 1 JWST observations to model the coevolution of black holes and their host galaxies. further constrains. The research team recently learned that the next cycle of JWST will give them additional time to study J2236+0032’s host galaxy in more detail.
Reference: “Detection of stellar light from quasar host galaxies with redshifts of 6 and above” Xuheng Ding, Masafusa Onoe, John D. Silverman, Yoshiki Matsuoka, Takuma Izumi, Michael A. Strauss, Knud Jahnke, Camryn L. Phillips, Junyao Li, Marta Bolontelli, Zoltan Heimann, Ilham Tawfik Andika, Kentaro Aoki, Shunsuke Baba, Rebecca Bieri, Sara A. Bosman, Connor Bottrell, Anna-Christina Eilers, Seiji Fujimoto, Melanie. Haboujit, Masatoshi Imanishi, Kohei Inayoshi, Kazushi Iwasawa, Norinari Kashiwagawa, Toshihiro Kawaguchi, Kotaro Kono, Chenshu Li, Alessandro Lupi, Jiangwei Liu, Toru Nagao, Roderick Overgier, Jan-Toge Schindler, Malte Schramm, Kazuhiro Shimasaku, Yoshiki Toba, Benny Trachtenbro, Maxime Trević, Tommaso Treu, Hideki Umehata, Bram P. Venemans, Marianne Vestergaard, Fabian Walter, Feige Wang, Jingyi Yang. , June 28, 2023 Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06345-5