Experiencing Resemblance: A Black Hole Discovered in a Food-Induced Slumber
Eating Stuff: It's What These Cosmic Giants Did Back Then. In the early universe, a colossal black hole, roughly 400 million times the mass of our Sun, had to take a break after overindulging roughly 13 billion years ago.
This monstrous black hole was identified using the advanced Webb Space Telescope, which can observe some of the universe's earliest light by focusing on near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. This allows it to pierce through interstellar dust clouds, revealing fainter, more distant light sources. According to a team of astronomers who studied the black hole, despite its youth, it's essentially in hibernation - challenging existing theories on black hole growth. Their findings were published today in Nature.
"Although this black hole is inactive, its immense size made it detectable," said Ignas Juodžbalis, a researcher at the University of Cambridge's Kavli Institute for Cosmology and the study's lead author, in a university press release. "Its inactive state allowed us to deduce information about the host galaxy's mass as well. The early universe managed to spawn some truly colossal beings, even within small galaxies."
Black holes are believed to form from the collapse of massive stars, and their enormous gravitational forces attract matter. This swirling matter emits light, forming an accretion disk. Occasionally, matter falls into the black hole, causing a bright burst of light - this is how the black hole survives.
Black hole accretion disks offer astronomers tantalizing morsels to better understand how black holes, which cannot emit light, become some of the universe's densest, most enormous entities. In 2021, a team published a study on a star stuck in a cruel cycle with a black hole. In 2022, a different team witnessed a black hole regurgitating a star years after consuming it. This year, a team discovered that the fastest-growing black hole devours a Sun every day and another team predicted the feeding schedule of a black hole 50 million times the mass of our Sun, around 860 million light-years from Earth.
However, this recently studied black hole has some key differences from the one examined using Webb data. Firstly, it's enormous, accounting for approximately 40% of the total mass of its host galaxy. Secondly, contrary to previous beliefs, it's barely eating, casting doubt on theories about black hole evolution.
"It's possible that black holes are 'born big,' which could explain why Webb has found massive black holes in the early universe," said study co-author Roberto Maiolino, a researcher with the Kavli Institute and Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, in the same release. "But another possibility is they go through periods of frenzied activity, followed by long periods of inactivity."
According to this theory, black holes consume material rapidly, briefly surpassing the predicted limit for their size. After that, they enter a phase of relaxation, surviving for about 100 million years before going back for more cosmic food.
The discovery of this colossal black hole in the early universe challenges the traditional understanding of black hole growth, as its youth and immense size suggest a future where it may once again become active and exceed its current boundaries. This newly discovered black hole's unusual behavior also raises intriguing questions about the role of science and technology in uncovering the secrets of space, particularly by using advanced telescopes like the Webb Space Telescope.
Upon further examination, it was found that this black hole's behavior deviates from the common assumptions, with its massive size accounting for nearly half of its host galaxy's total mass and its current inactivity casting doubt on existing theories of black hole evolution, potentially indicating a 'born big' or cyclic growth pattern in space.
