Scientists have discovered a black hole that is feeding at an unprecedented rate, consuming over seven million solar masses in just 12 million years. The “fast-feeding” black hole, named LID-568, has sparked debate about whether it breaks the laws of physics.
Researchers from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Chandra X-ray Observatory detected the black hole using its Integral Field Spectrograph instrument. They found that the black hole is emitting X-rays at a rate 40 times greater than what would be expected for an accreting black hole of its age.
The team, led by Hyewon Suh, believes that LID-568 began life as a “light” seed and underwent a rapid episode of accretion. This process, known as super-Eddington accretion, pushes the feedback limits, allowing the black hole to grow faster than initially thought.
However, experts caution that this phenomenon is not a permanent solution. The Eddington limit will eventually prevail, shutting down the accretion process. Nevertheless, the discovery of LID-568 provides new insights into the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe.
The findings have significant implications for our understanding of how these massive black holes formed and grew so quickly. Researchers hope that this breakthrough will shed light on one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics: the origin of supermassive black holes.
“This discovery shows that a fast-feeding mechanism above the Eddington limit is one of the possible explanations for why we see these very heavy black holes early in the universe,” said study co-author Julia Scharwächter.
Source: https://www.space.com/the-universe/black-holes/fastest-feeding-black-hole-of-the-early-universe-found-but-does-it-break-the-laws-of-physics