Cloaked Black Hole Discovered in Early Universe using NASA's Chandra

[Judi Lynn]

For Release: August 8, 2019

NASA/CXC



Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/Ponticifca Catholic Univ. of Chile/F. Vito;
Radio: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); Optical: Pan-STARRS
Press Image, Caption, and Videos

Astronomers have discovered evidence for the farthest "cloaked" black hole found to date, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. At only about 6% of the current age of the universe, this is the first indication of a black hole hidden by gas at such an early time in the history of the cosmos.

Supermassive black holes, which are millions to billions of times more massive than our Sun, typically grow by pulling in material from a disk of surrounding matter. Rapid growth generates large amounts of radiation in a very small region around the black hole. Scientists call this extremely bright, compact source a "quasar."

According to current theories, a dense cloud of gas feeds material into the disk surrounding a supermassive black hole during its period of early growth, which "cloaks" or hides much of the quasar's bright light from our view. As the black hole consumes material and becomes more massive, the gas in the cloud is depleted, until the black hole and its bright disk are uncovered.

"It's extraordinarily challenging to find quasars in this cloaked phase because so much of their radiation is absorbed and cannot be detected by current instruments," said Fabio Vito of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago, Chile, who led the study. "Thanks to Chandra and the ability of X-rays to pierce through the obscuring cloud, we think we've finally succeeded."

The new finding came from observations of a quasar called PSO167-13, which was first discovered by Pan-STARRS, an optical-light telescope in Hawaii. Optical observations from these and other surveys have detected about 180 quasars already shining brightly when the universe was less than a billion years old, or about 8 percent of its present age. These surveys were only considered effective at finding unobscured black holes, because the radiation they detect is suppressed by even thin clouds of gas and dust. Since PSO167-13 was part of those observations, this quasar was expected to be unobscured, too.

More:
https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/19_releases/press_080819.html

[SCantiGOP]

1. Thanks for a Science thread

Last time I came here there was a discussion about talking trees. I checked to make sure it wasn't the Lord of Rings forum.

[Igel]

2. Yes. It's Ent-tertaining. No doubt. n/t