CNN Indonesia
Wednesday, 12 Jul 2023 10:45 WIB
Illustration. Experts discover the oldest black hole ever observed with a telescope. (iStockphoto/Elen11)
Jakarta, CNNIndonesia —
For astronomer using the James Webb telescope (JWST) successfully detected black hole the most distant and oldest supermassive in the observable universe.
Despite its gigantic size, this black hole is actually one of the smallest ever observed in the early universe. Its size is roughly equivalent to 9 million Suns.
The researchers observed the galaxy that hosts this active supermassive black hole as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey and named it CEERS 1019.
The team led by University of Texas at Austin astronomer Steven Finkelstein also discovered two other black holes, which were 1 and 1.1 billion years old after the Big Bang, as well as 11 galaxies that existed between 470 million and 675 million years in history. cosmic.
“Until now, research on objects in the early universe has been largely theoretical,” Finkelstein said in a statement.
“With Webb, we can not only see black holes and galaxies at great distances, but also measure them accurately. That’s the incredible power of this telescope,” he continued.
The team’s results are the first findings from CEERS and were published in May in several papers in the special issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The Greedy Black Hole
The black hole that is the center of CEERS 1019 with a mass of 9 million Sun masses may sound very massive. However, at this relatively small size, the existence of a black hole with such a large mass in the universe is still a puzzle for scientists.
This is because the process of forming a supermassive black hole should take much longer than the 570 million years it takes for a black hole.
This means that even a black hole on the scale of the one at the center of the Milky Way, which has a mass of 4.5 million solar masses, should only be visible in the relatively close universe.
“Seeing this distant object with this telescope is very similar to viewing data from black holes that exist in galaxies close to our own,” said study co-author Rebecca Larson, a University of Texas at Austin doctoral student.
Scientists have long suspected that such supermassive black holes existed in the early universe. But only the JWST telescope has opened up their insights into this supermassive black hole.
The light emission indicates that the CEERS 1019 black hole is actively eating matter around it. The feeding black hole is surrounded by a vortex of gas and dust known as an accretion disk.
Not only the influence of gravity, the black hole that heats this material causes the disk to glow brightly, as quoted from Live Science.
(can/lth)
Watch the Video Below:
2023-07-12 03:45:15
#James #Webb #Telescope #Catches #Oldest #Black #Hole #Universe
