NASA Discovers Monster Black Hole So Big It Defies Theoretical Limits
Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of astronomers have identified a black hole at the center of a quasar known as RACS J0320-35 with an age just 920 million years after the Big Bang. What makes the black hole a puzzle of sorts is its mass, roughly a billion times that of our Sun. X-ray emissions detected by Chandra indicate that RACS J0320-35 is consuming matter at speeds far beyond the Eddington limit, a theoretical boundary where the outward pressure of radiation from infalling material would normally halt further growth.
The (Sir Arthur) Eddington limit is the maximum rate at which a black hole can accrete mass. At this limit, the intense light and heat from the super-hot material spiraling into the black hole would be so powerful that it would blow away any new matter trying to fall in. But the RACS J0320-35 black hole is exceeding it by a mile.
Furthermore, the findings could likewise shed light on the origin of relativistic jets. RACS J0320-35 is one of the rare quasars that possesses a powerful jet of particles moving at near the speed of light. The researchers speculate that the black hole's growth rate could be a big factor in the creation of these jets.
This research, which was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal, was a collaborative effort involving data from the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder and the Dark Energy Camera in Chile.
