NASA’s Chandra Finds Black Hole Growing Beyond Known Limits

The Chandra X-ray Observatory of NASA has shown that there is a black hole in the remote quasar RACS J0320-35 which is proving to be contrary to the expectations. It is approximately 12.8 billion light-years distant in space, and it was created less than a billion years after the Big Bang and is already almost a billion Suns. The data provided by Chandra indicate that it is devouring material faster than twice the so-called Eddington limit, which was the theoretical speed limit of the feeding of black holes.

The Eddington Barrier Frightened.

According to a paper, the black hole driving RACS J0320-35 is approximately 920 million years old and its rapid development is particularly interesting. Standard theory Standard theory is the belief that black holes cannot accrete matter at a rate exceeding the Eddington limit, above which the pull of gravity is counterbalanced by the push of radiating matter infalling. However Chandra X-ray spectrum is compatible with models in which this black hole is accreting at an average rate of approximately 2.4 times the Eddington limit. This is an exceptional rate of feeding of 300 to 3 000 solar masses per year.

Hints at the early universe.

This discovery can be explained in two ways. In either of the two cases, the super-Eddington feeding of small stellar-mass black holes can last long periods, or the black hole formed as an unusually large seed known as direct-collapse. The young universe conditions including low heavy-elements and large amounts of cold gas might have been favorable to this runaway growth. Observation of X-rays by Chandra and the James Webb Space Telescope, and future missions to observe X-rays, will be used to test which of these two scenarios is more likely to explain the existence of these surprisingly mature objects.