Astronomers find a supermassive black hole actively accumulated at 12.8 billion light years

A supermassive black hole at the center of the Quasar Racs radio J032021.44-352104.1 (RACS J0320-35 to short) develops in one of the fastest rates ever recorded, according to an analysis of radio and radio-radio-radio-radio-radio-radio-radio-radio-radio-radio

The black hole of the Racs J0320-35 weighs the mass of the sun about a billion times.

The system is located at around 12.8 billion light years from the earth, which means that astronomers only saw it 920 million years after the start of the universe.

It produces more X -rays than any other black hole seen in the first billion years of the universe.

The black hole feeds what scientists call a Quasar, an extremely brilliant object that surpasses whole galaxies.

The energy source of this bright monster is large amounts of matter surrounding and entering the black hole.

While the same team discovered it two years ago, Chandra observations took observations in 2023 to discover what distinguishes the Racs J0320-35.

X -ray data reveal that this black hole seems to grow at a rate that exceeds the normal limit of these objects.

“It was a bit shocking to see this black hole developing a giant step,” said Dr. Luca Ighina, astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian astrophysics center.

When the material is drawn to a black hole, it is heated and produces intense radiation on a wide spectrum, including X -rays and optical light. This radiation creates pressure on the infallible material.

When the influence rate reaches a critical value, the radiation pressure balances the gravity of the black hole and the matter cannot normally fall inside more quickly. This maximum is called the Eddington limit.

Scientists believe that black holes growing more slowly than Eddington’s limit must be born with masses of around 10,000 solar masses or more so that they can reach a billion solar masses in a billion years after the Big Bang – as was observed in the Rac J0320-35.

A black hole with such high birth mass could result directly from an exotic process: the collapse of a huge cloud of dense gas containing unusually low quantities of heavier elements than helium, conditions that can be extremely rare.

If the RAC J0320-35 develops at a high rate – estimated at 2.4 times the eddington limit – and made it for a lasting time, its black hole could have started in a more conventional way, with a mass less than a hundred solar masses, caused by the implosion of a massive star.

“By knowing the mass of the black hole and determining the speed with which he develops, we are able to work behind to estimate how much he could have been at birth,” said Dr. Alberto Moretti, astronomer of Inaf-Servatorio Astronomico Di Brera.

“With this calculation, we can now test different ideas on the birth of black holes.”

To understand how fast this black hole increases (between 300 and 3,000 suns per year), the researchers compared the theoretical models with the spectrum of X -rays of Chandra, which gives the quantities of X -rays to different energies.

They found that Chandra’s spectrum corresponded closely to what they expected models of a black hole growing faster than the eddington limit.

Optical and infrared light data also supports the interpretation that this black hole is faster on the weight than the eddington limit allows.

“How did the universe create the first generation of black holes?” said Dr. Thomas de Connor, astronomer at Harvard & Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics.

“This remains one of the biggest questions in astrophysics and this only object helps us to chase the answer.”

Another scientific mystery addressed by this result concerns the cause of particle jets which move away from certain black holes near the speed of light, as we see in Rac J0320-35.

“Jets like this are rare for the Quasars, which can mean that the rapid growth rate of the black hole contributes in a way to the creation of these jets,” said the authors.

Their paper appears in the Astrophysical Journal.

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Luca Ighina and al. 2025. Investigation of X-rays on a possible accretion of Super-Eddington in a Radio-Luoud quasar in Z = 6.13. Apjl 990, L56; Two: 10.3847 / 2041-8213 / ADED0A