Scientists discover hungriest black hole in early universe

By Dean Murray

Scientists have discovered the hungriest black hole in the early universe.

The low-mass supermassive black hole - named LID-568 - appears to be consuming matter at over 40 times the theoretical limit.

Using data from NASA's JWST and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of U.S. National Science Foundation NOIRLab astronomers observed it at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.

NOIRLab said: "While short-lived, this black hole’s ‘feast’ could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early Universe."

Supermassive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies, and modern telescopes continue to observe them at surprisingly early times in the Universe’s evolution.

“This black hole is having a feast,” says International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer and co-author Julia Scharwächter. “This extreme case shows that a fast-feeding mechanism above the Eddington limit is one of the possible explanations for why we see these very heavy black holes so early in the Universe.”

The Eddington limit is the maximum luminosity a body, such as a star, can achieve when there is a balance between the force of radiation acting outward and the gravitational force acting inward.

The discovery of LID-568 also shows that it’s possible for a black hole to exceed its Eddington limit, and provides the first opportunity for astronomers to study how this happens.

NOIRLab said: "It’s possible that the powerful outflows observed in LID-568 may be acting as a release valve for the excess energy generated by the extreme accretion, preventing the system from becoming too unstable. To further investigate the mechanisms at play, the team is planning follow-up observations with JWST."