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#^Monster Black Hole Sends Astrophycisists Back To The Drawing BoardAstronomers have found a black hole so powerful and hungry that it is forcing scientists to rethink what they know about the early universe.
A Black Hole Unlike Any Other
The object, named RACS J0320–35, sits 12.8 billion light-years away. It is already enormous, weighing about one billion times more than our Sun. That puts it firmly in the “supermassive” category – the type usually found at the heart of large galaxies.
What makes this one unusual is how fast it is still growing. Using data from
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, researchers found it is consuming material at 2.4 times the Eddington limit. That limit has long been seen as the maximum speed at which a black hole can grow.
Breaking the Cosmic ‘Speed Limit’
Black holes grow in two main ways: by merging with other black holes, or by pulling in matter from their surroundings, a process called accretion.
As gas, dust and even stars fall toward the black hole, they form a superheated ring known as an accretion disk. This disk shines so brightly that telescopes like Chandra can pick it up even across billions of light-years.
But there is thought to be a natural brake on this process. The Eddington limit says that when enough material falls in, the radiation pressure it gives off should push new matter away. That means the black hole shouldn’t be able to feed faster than this rate.
Yet RACS J0320–35 is exceeding that limit. Instead, it is swallowing the equivalent of 300 to 3,000 Suns every single year, producing more X-rays than any other black hole seen from the first billion years of the universe.
A Look Back in Time
Because it lies so far away, astronomers are seeing RACS J0320–35 as it was in the past. Its light has taken 12.8 billion years to reach Earth, which means we are viewing it only 920 million years after the Big Bang.
That makes it one of the earliest and fastest-growing black holes ever found. The discovery, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, raises big questions about how such giants managed to form so quickly in the young universe.
What Happens Next?
Black holes remain one of astronomy’s greatest mysteries. The first direct image of one was captured only in 2019, when telescopes worldwide combined to photograph the glowing ring around the black hole in galaxy M87.
Now, astronomers believe we may even witness a black hole explosion in the next decade. A separate team has estimated there is a 90% chance of such an event by 2035. If that happens, observatories in space and on Earth should be able to record the blast in detail.
For now, RACS J0320–35 is the clearest sign yet that black holes, even if they are not connected to other parts of the universe by wormholes, can send us back to the blackboard.
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Monster Black Hole Sends Astrophycisists Back To The Drawing Board appeared first on
Orbital Today.
