Astronomers have discovered the most distant blazar ever identified, VLASS J041009.05-013919.88, which provides a rare glimpse into the epoch of reionization when the Universe was less than 800 million years old.
This object is powered by a black hole with a mass of 700 million solar masses and exhibits radio variability, compact structure, and X-ray properties that identify it as a blazar with a jet aligned towards Earth. The discovery implies the existence of a much larger population of similar jetted sources in the early Universe.
The alignment of the jet with our line of sight allows astronomers to study the interplay between jets, black holes, and their environments during this transformative epoch. This finding suggests that current radio surveys might uncover additional jetted quasars from the same era, shedding light on the role of jets in shaping galaxies and growing supermassive black holes.
The discovery raises questions about how supermassive black holes grow rapidly in the Universe’s infancy. Models may need to account for jet-enhanced accretion or obscured, super-Eddington growth to reconcile this finding with the known black hole population at such high redshifts.
According to Dr. Eduardo Bañados and Dr. Silvia Belladitta from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, the discovery is comparable to winning a large lottery – if one object has been found, there must have been many more like it in the past. The results are published in two papers in the journal Nature Astronomy and the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Source: https://www.sci.news/astronomy/most-distant-blazar-13571.html