Webb Telescope detects most distant active supermassive black hole


Date:
July 6, 2023
Source:
University of Texas at Austin
Summary:
Researchers have discovered the most distant active supermassive
black hole to date with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The
galaxy, CEERS 1019, existed about 570 million years after the
big bang, and its black hole is less massive than any other yet
identified in the early universe.


Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email

==========================================================================
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers have discovered the most distant active supermassive black
hole to date with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The galaxy, CEERS 1019, existed about 570 million years after the big bang, and its black
hole is less massive than any other yet identified in the early universe.

In addition to the black hole in CEERS 1019, the researchers identified
two more black holes that are on the smaller side and existed 1 billion
and 1.1 billion years after the big bang. JWST also identified eleven
galaxies that existed when the universe was 470 million to 675 million
years old. The evidence was provided by JWST's Cosmic Evolution Early
Release Science (CEERS) Survey, led by Steven Finkelstein, a professor
of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin. The program combines
JWST's highly detailed near- and mid- infrared images and data known as spectra, all of which were used to make these discoveries.

"Looking at this distant object with this telescope is a lot like
looking at data from black holes that exist in galaxies near our own,"
said Rebecca Larson, a recent Ph.D. graduate at UT Austin, who led the
study. "There are so many spectral lines to analyze!" The team has
published these results in several initial papers in a special edition
of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

CEERS 1019 is notable not only for how long ago it existed, but also how relatively little its black hole weighs. It clocks in around 9 million
solar masses, far less than other black holes that also existed in the
early universe and were detected by other telescopes. Those behemoths
typically contain more than 1 billion times the mass of the sun -- and
they are easier to detect because they are much brighter. The black hole
within CEERS 1019 is more like the black hole at the center of our Milky
Way galaxy, which is 4.6 million times the mass of the sun.

Though smaller, this black hole existed so much earlier that it is still difficult to explain how it formed so soon after the universe began.

Researchers have long known that smaller black holes must have existed
earlier in the universe, but it wasn't until JWST began observing that
they were able to make definitive detections.

Not only could the team untangle which emissions in the spectrum are
from the black hole and which are from its host galaxy, they could also pinpoint how much gas the black hole is ingesting and determine its
galaxy's star-formation rate.

The team found this galaxy is ingesting as much gas as it can while also churning out new stars. They turned to the images to explore why that
might be.

Visually, CEERS 1019 appears as three bright clumps, not a single
circular disk.

"We're not used to seeing so much structure in images at these distances,"
said CEERS team member Jeyhan Kartaltepe, an associate professor of
astronomy at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. "A
galaxy merger could be partly responsible for fueling the activity in
this galaxy's black hole, and that could also lead to increased star formation." These are only the first groundbreaking findings from the
CEERS Survey.

"Until now, research about objects in the early universe was largely theoretical," Finkelstein said. "With Webb, not only can we see black
holes and galaxies at extreme distances, we can now start to accurately
measure them.

That's the tremendous power of this telescope." In the future, it's
possible JWST's data may also be used to explain how early black holes
formed, revising researchers' models of how black holes grew and evolved
in the first several hundred million years of the universe's history.

The James Webb Space Telescope is an international program led by NASA
with its partners, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space
Agency.

More Extremely Distant Black Holes and Galaxies The CEERS Survey is
expansive, and there is much more to explore. Team member Dale Kocevski of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and the team quickly spotted another
pair of small black holes in the data. The first, within galaxy CEERS
2782, was easiest to pick out. There isn't any dust obscuring JWST's
view of it, so researchers could immediately determine when its black
hole existed in the history of the universe -- only 1.1 billion years
after the big bang.

The second black hole, in galaxy CEERS 746, existed slightly earlier,
1 billion years after the big bang. Its bright accretion disk, a ring
made up of gas and dust that encircles its supermassive black hole,
is still partially clouded by dust.

"The central black hole is visible, but the presence of dust suggests
it might lie within a galaxy that is also furiously pumping out stars," Kocevski explained.

Like the one in CEERS 1019, the two other newly described black holes
(in galaxies CEERS 2782 and CEERS 746) are also "light weights" -- at
least when compared with previously known supermassive black holes at
these distances.

They are only about 10 million times the mass of the sun.

"Researchers have long known that there must be lower mass black holes in
the early universe. Webb is the first observatory that can capture them
so clearly," Kocevski said. "Now we think that lower mass black holes
might be all over the place, waiting to be discovered." Before JWST,
all three black holes were too faint to be detected.

"With other telescopes, these targets look like ordinary star-forming
galaxies, not active supermassive black holes," Finkelstein added.

JWST's sensitive spectra also allowed these researchers to measure
precise distances to, and therefore the ages of, galaxies in the early universe. Team members Pablo Arrabal Haro of the National Science
Foundation's NOIRLab and Seiji Fujimoto, a postdoctoral researcher
and Hubble fellow at UT Austin, identified 11 galaxies that existed
470 million to 675 million years after the big bang. Not only are they extremely distant, the fact that so many bright galaxies were detected
is notable. Researchers theorized that JWST would detect fewer galaxies
than are being found at these distances.

"I am overwhelmed by the amount of highly detailed spectra of remote
galaxies Webb returned," Arrabal Haro said. "These data are absolutely incredible." These galaxies are rapidly forming stars but are not yet
as chemically enriched as galaxies that are much closer to home.

"Webb was the first to detect some of these galaxies," explained Fujimoto.

"This set, along with other distant galaxies we may identify in the
future, might change our understanding of star formation and galaxy
evolution throughout cosmic history," he added.

Link to the special edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters:https:// iopscience.iop.org/collections/apjl-230504-220_Focus-on-CEERS-JWST-Survey
* RELATED_TOPICS
o Space_&_Time
# Black_Holes # Galaxies # Astrophysics # Astronomy #
Stars # Cosmology # Big_Bang # Space_Telescopes
* RELATED_TERMS
o Spitzer_space_telescope
o Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation
o Black_hole o Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis o
Holographic_Universe o Galaxy_formation_and_evolution o
Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation o Big_Bang

==========================================================================

Print

Email

Share ========================================================================== ****** 1 ****** ***** 2 ***** **** 3 ****
*** 4 *** ** 5 ** Breaking this hour ==========================================================================
* First_Snapshots_of_Fermion_Pairs *
Why_No_Kangaroos_in_Bali;_No_Tigers_in_Australia
* New_Route_for_Treating_Cancer:_Chromosomes *
Giant_Stone_Artefacts_Found:_Prehistoric_Tools
* Astonishing_Secrets_of_Tunicate_Origins *
Most_Distant_Active_Supermassive_Black_Hole *
Creative_People_Enjoy_Idle_Time_More_Than_Others
* Restoring_Fragile_X_Protein_Production *
Earth's_Solid_Metal_Sphere_Is_'Textured' *
Elephants_Vary_Their_Dinner_Menu_Day-To-Day

Trending Topics this week ========================================================================== SPACE_&_TIME Asteroids,_Comets_and_Meteors Big_Bang Jupiter
MATTER_&_ENERGY Biochemistry Construction Engineering_and_Construction COMPUTERS_&_MATH Educational_Technology Communications
Mathematical_Modeling


==========================================================================

Strange & Offbeat ========================================================================== SPACE_&_TIME Quasar_'Clocks'_Show_Universe_Was_Five_Times_Slower_Soon_After_the_Big_Bang First_'Ghost_Particle'_Image_of_Milky_Way Gullies_on_Mars_Could_Have_Been_Formed_by_Recent_Periods_of_Liquid_Meltwater, Study_Suggests MATTER_&_ENERGY Holograms_for_Life:_Improving_IVF_Success Researchers_Create_Highly_Conductive_Metallic_Gel_for_3D_Printing Growing_Bio-Inspired_Polymer_Brains_for_Artificial_Neural_Networks COMPUTERS_&_MATH
Number_Cruncher_Calculates_Whether_Whales_Are_Acting_Weirdly AI_Tests_Into_Top_1%_for_Original_Creative_Thinking Displays_Controlled_by_Flexible_Fins_and_Liquid_Droplets_More_Versatile, Efficient_Than_LED_Screens Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Texas_at_Austin. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


==========================================================================


Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230706124536.htm

--- up 1 year, 18 weeks, 3 days, 10 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)