NASA discovers  LID-568, a supermassive black hole

Syllabus:

GS 3 : Science and technology

Why in the News?

NASA’s James Webb Telescope and Chandra Observatory recently discovered LID-568, a supermassive black hole beyond the growth limit, providing important insights into the evolution of black holes in the early universe.

NASA discovers  LID-568, a supermassive black hole

Introduction

  • Recent progress using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory have revealed a unique black hole, LID-568, which challenges existing theories of black hole formation.
  • It reveals super-Eddington accretion in an unprecedented scale, the rapid growth of supermassive black holes in early stages, and giving way to new questions about evolution of universe.

Discovery of a strange black hole and the search for the supermassive black hole

  • Supermassive black holes are common features at the centers of most galaxies.
  • These black holes range in mass from millions to billions of times that of our sun.
  • Example: Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, has a mass of about 4.3 million solar masses.

Secret to growth

  • Despite their frequency, scientists don’t know how supermassive black holes grow to such size.
  • Understanding how they form and grow is a complex mystery for astrophysicists.
  • LID-568 has recently been discovered
  • Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of researchers discovered LID-568, a unique black hole.
  • This observation could help explain how supermassive black holes grow and provide new insights into their early evolution in the cosmos.

LID-568: Black hole beyond the upper boundary

  • LID-568 is the largest low-mass black hole discovered 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.
  • To put this in perspective, if the universe was eight years old, LID-568 would have existed in its “infancy”.

Abnormal feeding

  • LID-568 feeds the surrounding object cloud at a different rate.
  • Its food intake is 40 times higher than what astronomers previously thought was the upper limit.

Studies and products

  • The study, led by Hyewon Suh of the International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, was published in November 2024 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
  • Initially, lunar X-ray observations of LID-568 revealed it to be exceptionally bright in the X-rays.
  • Despite their brightness, the X-rays were completely invisible to the naked eye and near-infrared, even to the powerful Hubble Space Telescope

Role of JWST

  • The unparalleled infrared sensitivity of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) allowed researchers to see the nature of these alien black holes.
  • Suh emphasized the importance of integrating data from the Moon and JWST, demonstrating the interoperability of these advanced observatories.

LID-568: A black hole of a different class

  • The Eddington limit governs how fast a black hole can consume its surroundings.
  • Named after Arthur Stanley Eddington, this limit also controls how intensely a black hole can shine.
  • As material falls into a black hole, it compresses and heats up, releasing radiation, especially X-rays.
  • The radiation creates an external pressure that can counteract the gravitational attraction of the black hole.
  • When the gravitational pressure equals gravity, the black hole stops consuming material, setting a theoretical limit on its luminosity and penetration.

Super-Eddington enhancement with LID-568

  • When a black hole exceeds this limit, it has super-Eddington accretion, which is rare and unusual.
  • LID-568 falls into this category, making it a unique invention.

Key findings of LID-568

  • The researchers measured the black hole’s mass and luminosity using the Moon and JWST’s near-infrared spectrograph.
  • LID-568 exceeds the Eddington limit by 40 times — a far cry from previous observations.
  • Its distance from Earth, about 15 million years after the Big Bang, also makes it unique.
  • The next most distant known super-Eddington black hole is about3 billion light years away.

Rare event caught

  • Normally, information about super-Eddington accretion doesn’t last long, so it’s worth noting that the researchers discovered LID-568 at this point.

Implications of the findings

  • LID-568 challenges existing assumptions about black hole feeding rates.
  • The data shed light on how fast black holes grew in the early universe and opened up new avenues for scientific research.

How supermassive black holes grow abnormally

  • A supermassive black hole is millions or millions of times larger than the Sun defies existing models of black hole growth.
  • These black holes are confirmed to be at the center of galaxies that formed when the universe was less than a million years old.
  • Because of the small amount of matter in the early universe, it is difficult for scientists to explain how such massive black holes formed so quickly.

Conventional models of black hole formation

  • According to traditional theory, supermassive black holes are formed by two main processes:
    • Small Seeds: Because the first star collapsed, these seeds are 10-100 times the mass of the sun.
    • Heavy seed: Formed by direct collapse of original gas clouds, 1,000 to 100,000 times the mass of the sun
  • These models assume that black holes continue to grow through the process of matter for hundreds of millions of years.
  • However, the sustainability of such increases over time is considered unlikely and direct observational evidence is lacking.

LID-568’s Discovery

  • Black hole LID-568 challenges conventional assumptions by achieving rapid growth with short periods of intensive feeding.
  • This rapid feeding method means that the largest black holes may not require long and prolonged cultivation to mature.
  • Such events can allow black holes to reach critical mass more rapidly, regardless of whether they come from small or heavy seeds.

Exploring the secrets of supermassive black holes

  • Scientists have proposed several theories to explain how black holes like LID-568 cross the Eddington limit:
  • Geometrically Thick Accretion Discs: The thick and dense disc surrounding black holes is unusually capable of feeding.
  • Strong black hole water: Water generated by black holes played a role in disrupting normal food boundaries.
  • Black hole mergers: Black hole mergers can make rapid accretion possible for a short time.
  • Despite these hypotheses, researchers are still unsure of the exact mechanism behind the rapid delivery of LID-568.

Role of outflows in star formation

  • Studies have shown that the host galaxy of LID-568 does not produce many new stars.
  • This phenomenon could be due to the flow of water from the black hole—matter flowing out of the black hole, blocking the material needed to form stars

Future research designs

  • The team plans to study similar galaxies to look for flows driven by fast-feeding black holes like LID-568.
  • The researchers aim to determine how long black holes can sustain super-Eddington accretion and estimate what percentage of black holes exhibit this type of behavior.

Conclusion

The discovery of LID-568 provides important insights into the rapid growth of supermassive black holes, challenging existing models and paving the way for deeper understanding through future modeling and analysis.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Practice Question:

Discuss the significance of the discovery of the supermassive black hole LID-568 and its implications for the formation and growth of black holes in the early universe. (250 words)