Cosmic Discovery: James Webb Detects a Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of a Cosmic “Feast”

Since 2022, the James Webb space telescope has pointed towards the Universe and in particular towards its origins to resolve its most stubborn secrets. Recently, a study published on November 4, 2024 in the journal Nature astronomy highlights LID-568, a supermassive black hole with abnormally high growth shortly after the birth of the Universe.

What is a supermassive black hole?

Among all the cosmic anomalies that populate the Universe, black holes are the headliners. There are several types:

• The stellar ones: resulting from the death of a star
• Intermediaries
• Supermassives: those found in particular at the centers of galaxies (Sagittarius A* is the one present at the center of the Milky Way)
• The primordials: a theoretical model of a black hole whose mass can vary, according to NASA, between 100,000 times less than that of a paperclip and 100,000 times more than that of the Sun

Thus, LID-568, the black hole spotted by the James Webb space telescope, is one of the giants of the Universe, but also one of the oldest.

“ He's having a feast ”

In the same way that we eat pasta or rice during our meals, a supermassive black hole, like all the others, feeds on matter. Only LID-568, which would have been born only 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, seems to be feeding much faster than expected.

“He's having a feast” even declared Julia Scharwächter, from Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab and co-author of the study published in Nature astronomy in a statement reported by his observatory. Indeed, according to researchers, the latter is eating at a speed 40 times higher than normal. Going far beyond Eddington's notion of limit.

This, if we refer to Britannicarepresents “a theoretical upper limit on the mass of a star or an accretion disk [ndr, disque de matière entourant un trou noir]. At the Eddington mass limit, the outer pressure of the star's radiation balances the inner gravitational force. If a star exceeds this limit, its brightness will be so high that it will explode the outer layers of the star. [ndr, dans ce cas, le disque d’accrétion]. The limit depends on the specific internal conditions of the star and is around several hundred solar masses”

LID-568 is therefore not a simple supermassive black hole. Indeed, this cosmic monster is today considered to be a super-Eddington type black hole. In other words, its growth can be particularly rapid in the space of a cosmically short time.

An explanation of the primordial ecosystem of the Universe

Since the James Webb Space Telescope was commissioned in 2022, numerous discoveries have challenged some of our cosmological knowledge. Indeed, the astronomical telescope notably highlighted numerous black holes originating from the origin of the Universe which were more massive than previously thought.

However, thanks to LID-568, astrophysicists may have an explanation for why such black holes could be observed when the Universe was so young. “This extreme case shows that a rapid feeding mechanism above the Eddington limit is one of the possible explanations for the appearance of these very heavy black holes so early in the Universe.” explains Julia Scharwächter.

Future studies of the supermassive black hole LID-568 will help lift the veil on this mystery. Are these a few isolated cases or a real astrophysical principle concerning the first black holes in the Universe?

Source : Reuters / LiveScience