A Black Hole named ‘LID-568’ has been found feeding on a surrounding cloud of matter at almost 40-times faster showing Super -Eddington Accretion properties.
About the Research
- Subject: A detailed analysis of the effects of ‘LID-568’ exceeding the eddington limit on its neighbourhood was the subject of the study.
- LID-568’ is a low-mass supermassive black hole existing just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.
- Conducted By: The study was conducted by a team of international researchers led by International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer Hyewon Suh.
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- Satellite Data: The total light coming from the black hole and its mass was measured using observations from theNASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Chandra X-ray observatory.
- ‘LID-568’ was first observed through Chandra X-ray observatory, as it was exceptionally bright in X-rays
- Finding:
- Exceptional Feeding Rate: ‘LID-568’ black hole was feeding on a surrounding cloud of matter at almost 40-times greater than the upper Eddington limit.
- Until now, super Eddington Accretion was observed and limited to a factor of two or three at most.
- Distance: LID-568 is now the most distant super-Eddington black hole which was found. Previously the most distant of these other black holes was around 2.3 billion light years from earth.
- Galaxy Outflow: The LID-568’s galaxy was producing few new stars as outflows could be preventing matter from accumulating in enough quantities to form stars
- Outflows are a result of the black supermassive hole driving powerful streams of material outward from the centre.
- Significance: The discovery may provide insights into the genesis and growth of supermassive black holes as it suggests that large black holes could have put on a significant fraction of their weight during short-lived episodes of rapid feeding.
About Eddington Limit
- The Eddington limit is the maximum luminosity an object can emit before the force of radiation overcomes gravity.
- It is the rate at which a black hole feeds on matter.
- The Eddington limit applies to stars, accretion disks, and other objects in space.
- Named: This limit is named after the English astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington and relates to how brightly a black hole can shine.
- Hydrostatic Equilibrium: The Eddington limit is a balance between the outward force of radiation and the inward force of gravity. This balance is called Hydrostatic Equilibrium.
- Concept:
- The matter collects around the black hole and gets packed into the disc, it heats up and emits radiation, especially X-rays.
- The force of radiation generates an outward pressure capable of counteracting the gravitational pull of the black hole.
- When this radiation pressure balances the force of gravity, the black hole will stop accruing the matter.
- Super -Eddington Accretion: When an object exceeds its Eddington limit, the radiation pressure forces material away from it, instead of allowing it to fall in.
- Causes: A stellar object can show Super -Eddington Accretion when,
- Non-spherical geometry: The geometry of the star or black hole can cause it to exceed the Eddington limit
- Instabilities: Instabilities in the star or black hole can cause it to exceed the Eddington limit
- Theories: Few theories try to explain how black holes can exceed the Eddington limit, including,
- Geometrically thick accretion disks, powerful black hole jets, and black-hole mergers.
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About Black Holes
- A black hole is an extremely dense astronomical object with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it.
- The first detected black hole was Cygnus-X1.
- Event Horizon: It is black hole’s boundary where the velocity needed to escape exceeds the speed of light, which is the speed limit of the cosmos. Matter and radiation fall in, but they can’t get out.
- Captured: Black Hole was captured for the first time in 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration.
- The black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy 55 million light-years from Earth was captured.
- Types: Blackholes can be classified according to their mass, There are two established types,
- Stellar Black Hole: It forms when a star with more than 20 solar masses exhausts the nuclear fuel in its core and collapses under its own weight triggering a supernova explosion.
- If the crushed core contains more than about three times the Sun’s mass it will form into a black hole
- Supermassive Blackhole: They are found at the center of a galaxy suggesting its formation as a part of the formation of its galaxy. How these blackholes formed is yet to be determined.
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23 Jan 2025
