Black holes previously classified as “supermassive” may not be as gargantuan as once thought, according to new research.
Astronomers announced on Thursday that a breakthrough study of a distant quasar — the intensely bright, active centre of a faraway galaxy — revealed its central black hole to have a mass of roughly one billion suns. This is about one-tenth of the size scientists had long assumed.
Researchers from the University of Southampton, working with European collaborators, made the discovery after observing a galaxy more than 12 billion light years away using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) cutting-edge facilities in Chile.
“Despite the quasar’s extreme brightness, the black hole at its centre has a mass equal to only around one billion suns,” said Associate Professor Christian Wolf of the Australian National University (ANU). He added that, contrary to expectations, the black hole was not spinning rapidly but rather expelling gas — driven away by its intense radiation.
Wolf and his team at ANU first detected the galaxy’s central black hole in 2024.
Professor Seb Hoenig of the University of Southampton said the finding could solve a longstanding puzzle. “We have been wondering for years how we keep discovering these fully formed supermassive black holes in very young galaxies so soon after the Big Bang. They shouldn’t have had the time to grow that massive,” he told the Press Association.
The study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, used Gravity+, a sophisticated instrument that combines light from four of ESO’s Very Large Telescope units. The international team, which included researchers from France, Germany, Portugal and Belgium, analysed the hot gas swirling into the black hole.
Their results indicate that intense radiation is blasting away much of the inflowing gas, slowing the black hole’s growth.
“Think of it like a cosmic hairdryer set to maximum power,” Hoenig explained. “The radiation is blowing away almost everything that comes near.”
The discovery could lead scientists to revisit how they measure black hole masses and potentially reshape theories of cosmic evolution.
Source: Al Jazeera
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