2023-11-17 07:00:02
In a scientific feat, an international team of researchers has discovered the oldest black hole ever observed. Formed only 470 million years after the Big Bang, this cosmic black hole is a true astral beast, revealing mysteries of the nascent Universe.
This annotated image provided by NASA on Monday, November 6, 2023 shows a composite view of data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope, indicating a growing black hole just 470 million years after the Big Bang. It is the oldest black hole ever discovered.
Credit: NASA
The results, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, confirm theories that supermassive black holes existed in the dawn of the Universe. The observations were made through a collaboration between NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
At 13.2 billion years old, considering the age of the Universe of 13.7 billion years, this black hole is surprisingly colossal. Its mass is estimated to be between 10% and 100% of that of all the stars in its galaxy, a gigantic proportion compared to that of the black holes in our Milky Way and other nearby galaxies, generally of the order of 0.1%. .
Its impressive size surprised scientists, as Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University, a study participant, explains. The black hole (The Black Hole) is a science fiction film directed by Gary Nelson,…) already seems well in place with its galaxy, very early in the history of the Universe.
According to the researchers, this black hole formed from huge clouds of gas collapsing in a nearby galaxy. The merger of these two galaxies gave birth to this cosmic monster. Its detection by Chandra via X-rays confirms beyond doubt that it is a black hole.
This black hole is considered a quasar because it is actively growing and the gas it engulfs glows intensely. Priyamvada Natarajan expects more ancient black holes to be discovered, thanks to new observation methods.
The Webb and Chandra telescopes used a technique called gravitational lensing to enlarge the region of space where this galaxy, UHZ1, and its black hole are located. They used light from a closer galaxy cluster, just 3.2 billion years away. light from the Earth, to magnify UHZ1 and its black hole, located much further away.
Launched in 2021 1.6 million kilometers from Earth, the Webb telescope is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever sent into the world. space ; it observes the Universe in infrared (Infrared radiation (IR) is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength…). The older Chandra was launched in 1999 and has x-ray vision.
Quasars: extreme objects
A quasar, or “quasi-stellar radiation source”, is an extremely luminous and powerful type of supermassive black hole. A supermassive black hole is a black hole with a mass of around one million…) located at the center of certain distant galaxies. Quasars are among the brightest and most energetic objects in the Universe.
The quasar phenomenon occurs when a supermassive black hole attracts matter. This material, often from interstellar gas or torn stars, forms an accretion disk around the black hole. In this disk, matter is heated to extremely high temperatures, emitting a considerable amount of light and radiation, notably X-rays and visible light (Visible light, also called visible spectrum or optical spectrum is the part of the.. .).
Quasars are important to astrophysicists because they serve as beacons for studying the distant Universe. Their exceptional brightness allows them to be detected even at colossal distances, providing insight into the early stages of the evolution of the Universe. By observing quasars, scientists can also gather information about the formation and growth of supermassive black holes and the conditions in galaxies when the Universe was young.
Furthermore, quasars play a crucial role in the study of cosmology, particularly with regard to measuring the distribution of matter in the Universe and the study of cosmic expansion.
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