Challenging the hypothesis of black hole formation, the oldest black hole in the universe was discovered: dating back more than 13 billion years ago.
Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to discover the oldest black hole in the universe, which can be traced back to 400 million years after the Big Bang, which is more than 13 billion years ago. forward.
Professor Roberto Maiolino, the first author of the research, which was published in the journal Nature on January 17, called it “a huge leap.”
The black hole is incredibly massive, millions of times more massive than our sun, and challenges our assumptions about how black holes form and grow.
The current consensus among astronomers is that the supermassive black holes found in the centers of galaxies such as the Milky Way need billions of years of growth to reach their current size; and the size of this newly discovered black hole shows that black holes can be formed in other ways. For example, being “born big”, or swallowing matter quickly.
Like all black holes, this one is devouring material in the host galaxy to power its own growth. However, we found that this ancient black hole devoured matter much more vigorously than its later siblings.
This young host galaxy is called GN-z11, and it has such an energetic black hole at its center. Black holes cannot be directly observed and can only be detected through the clues of the vortex accretion disk formed near the edge of the black hole.
The gas in the accretion disk becomes extremely hot and begins to glow and radiate energy in the ultraviolet range, and it is this intense light that astronomers use to detect black holes.
GN-z11 is a compact galaxy, one-hundredth the size of the Milky Way, but black holes are likely to harm its development. When a black hole swallows too much gas, it pushes the gas away like a super-fast wind. This “wind” would halt the star formation process, slowly killing the galaxy, but it would also kill the black hole itself, as it would also cut off the black hole’s source of “food.”
NaijaTechNews media attaches the reference address of the paper:
-
Maiolino, R., Scholtz, J., Witstok, J. et al. A small and vigorous black hole in the early Universe. Nature (2024).
For more such interesting article like this, app/softwares, games, Gadget Reviews, comparisons, troubleshooting guides, listicles, and tips & tricks related to Windows, Android, iOS, and macOS, follow us on Google News, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.