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Category: cosmology – Page 98

Researchers have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the dawn of the universe, and found that it is ‘eating’ its host galaxy to death.

The international team, led by the University of Cambridge, used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect the black hole, which dates from 400 million years after the Big Bang, more than 13 billion years ago. The results, which lead author Professor Roberto Maiolino says are “a giant leap forward,” are reported in the journal Nature.

That this surprisingly —a few million times the mass of our sun—even exists so early in the challenges our assumptions about how black holes form and grow. Astronomers believe that the supermassive black holes found at the center of galaxies like the Milky Way grew to their current size over billions of years. But the size of this newly-discovered black hole suggests that they might form in other ways: they might be ‘born big’ or they can eat matter at a rate that’s five times higher than had been thought possible.

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New discoveries in Tidal Disruption Events enhance our understanding of supermassive black holes and their properties.

A new study by Hebrew University is a significant breakthrough in understanding Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) involving supermassive black holes. The new simulations, for the first time ever, accurately replicate the entire sequence of a TDE from stellar disruption to the peak luminosity of the resulting flare. This study has unveiled a previously unknown type of shockwave within TDEs, settling a longstanding debate about the energy source of the brightest phases in these events. It confirms that shock dissipation powers the brightest weeks of a TDE flare, opening doors for future studies to utilize TDE observations as a means to measure essential properties of black holes and potentially test Einstein’s predictions in extreme gravitational environments.

The mysteries of supermassive black holes have long captivated astronomers, offering a glimpse into the deepest corners of our universe. Now, a new study led by Dr. Elad Steinberg and Dr. Nicholas C. Stone at the Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, sheds new light on these enigmatic cosmic entities.

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XRISM’s first high-resolution spectrum of supernova remnant N132D offers unprecedented insights into the chemical and physical properties of the aftermath of a star’s explosion, enhancing our understanding of the universe’s elemental composition.

This image is the first high-resolution energy spectrum from the Resolve instrument on JAXA’s XRISM mission. It shows the energy of X-rays being produced within the remains of a massive star exploding in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, creating a ‘supernova remnant’ known as N132D. Spectra such as this one will enable scientists to measure the temperature and motion of X-ray emitting gas with unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy.

The spectrum indicates which chemical elements exist in N132D. XRISM can identify each element by measuring the specific energy of X-ray light that it emits (the label ‘keV’ on the x axis of the graph refers to kiloelectronvolts, a unit of energy). The ‘energy resolution’ of XRISM (its capability to distinguish X-ray light arriving with different amounts of energy) is incredible. The faint grey line shows the same spectrum from the XIS instrument on JAXA ’s Suzaku X-ray telescope (source). The energy resolution from XRISM is more than 40 times better over the energy range shown in this spectrum.

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Computer simulations show how mysterious intermediate-mass black holes could form inside stellar clusters.

An international consortium of astronomers, including staff from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, has successfully unraveled the intricate formation mechanisms of the elusive intermediate-mass black holes. They could represent the link between their smaller relatives, the stellar black holes, and the supermassive giants that populate the centers of galaxies. This achievement derives from the DRAGON-II simulation project led by the Gran Sasso Science Institute. The scientists involved in this study computed the complex interactions of stars, stellar black holes, and physical processes inside dense stellar clusters, demonstrating that black holes of up to a few hundred solar masses can emerge in those environments.

The Cradle of Black Holes.

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