Black holes are one of the most mysterious cosmic objects, much studied but not fully understood. In their quest to understand these celestial objects, astronomers have stumbled upon a supermassive black hole, located 12.9 billion light years from Earth, and it’s doing something pretty spectacular. The “blazar” is firing a super-powerful beam of energy straight at us.
Exactly 100 million years after the Big Bang occurred, a beam of energy from this black hole has come to us – setting a new record for the distance from which we have observed such an event. This discovery also raises questions about how supermassive black holes grow so rapidly in the early stages of the universe.
The black hole, named J0410-0139, has a mass equal to about 700 million Suns and is one of the oldest black holes of its kind observed by scientists. Detected using data from multiple telescopes, including NASA’s Chandra Observatory and Chile’s Very Large Telescope, the black hole has provided a new glimpse into the early universe.
“The alignment of J0410-0139’s jet with our line of sight allows astronomers to peer directly into the heart of this cosmic powerhouse. This blazar is the perfect opportunity to study the interplay between the jet, the black hole, and their atmosphere during an event in the universe. “This provides a unique laboratory for the most transformative era,” said astronomer Dr. John C. of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Virginia, who was involved in the study. Emmanuel Momajian said, The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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What is a blazer?
The universe is full of powerful supermassive black holes that create powerful jets of high-energy particles, creating sources of extreme brightness in the vastness of space. According to NASA, when one of those jets points directly toward Earth, scientists call the black hole system a blazar.
The length of the jets coming out of these blazars can be up to millions of light years. They are extremely bright because as the particles approach the speed of light, they release tremendous amounts of energy and behave in strange ways as predicted by Albert Einstein.
So far, just under 3,000 blazars have been discovered, but most are located closer to Earth than J0410-0139. Despite decades of study, scientists still do not fully understand the physical processes that shape the dynamics and emissions of blazar jets.
