Researchers Spot Black Hole Eating Stuff At Over 40x the Theoretical Limit (sciencealert.com) 34
Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole in the early Universe devouring matter at over 40 times the Eddington limit. ScienceAlert reports: Led by astronomer Hyewon Suh of Gemini Observatory and NSF's NOIRLab, a team of researchers used JWST to take follow-up observations of a smattering of galaxies identified by the Chandra X-ray Observatory that were bright in X-rays but dim in other wavelengths. When they got to LID-568, they were having trouble identifying its distance across space-time. The galaxy was very faint and very hard to see; but, using the integral field spectrograph on JWST's NIRSpec instrument, the team homed in on the galaxy's exact position. LID-568's far-off location is surprising. Although the object is faint from our position in the Universe, its distance means it must be incredibly intrinsically bright. Detailed observations revealed powerful outflows from the supermassive black hole, a signature of accretion as some of the material is being diverted and blasted into space.
A painstaking analysis of the data revealed that the supermassive black hole is a relatively small one, as supermassive black holes go; just 7.2 million times the mass of the Sun. And the amount of light being produced by the material around the disk was much, much higher than a black hole of this mass should be capable of producing. It suggests an accretion rate some 40 times higher than the Eddington limit. At this rate, the period of super-Eddington accretion should be extremely brief, which means Suh and her team were extremely lucky to catch it in action. And we expect that LID-568 will become a popular observation target for black hole scientists, allowing us a rare glimpse into super-Eddington processes. The research has been published in Nature Astronomy.
A painstaking analysis of the data revealed that the supermassive black hole is a relatively small one, as supermassive black holes go; just 7.2 million times the mass of the Sun. And the amount of light being produced by the material around the disk was much, much higher than a black hole of this mass should be capable of producing. It suggests an accretion rate some 40 times higher than the Eddington limit. At this rate, the period of super-Eddington accretion should be extremely brief, which means Suh and her team were extremely lucky to catch it in action. And we expect that LID-568 will become a popular observation target for black hole scientists, allowing us a rare glimpse into super-Eddington processes. The research has been published in Nature Astronomy.
Dark Matter (Score:2)
Re: Dark Matter (Score:1)
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Just a few more hours.
Yeah.. Then the riots can begin, no matter who wins.
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Dark matter on not, 40 times the theoretical limit? That's nothing compared to the speed at which Kamala and friends are messing up the USA! Please stop the bleeding.
My initial thought when I read the headline was that they'd discovered Whoopie Goldberg in space.
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nothing like a partisan comment to perfectly illustrate the reality of our situation
Left versus right is clearly just divide and conquer while all our political parties are owned and controlled by upper class influences based on campaign contributions and political lobbying.
people, we are being manipulated and exploited
just saying
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Political science has determined it's always the fault of the other side, that's because passing the buck is always far cheaper than owning it. ~ Max Headroom
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Left versus right is clearly just divide and conquer while all our political parties are owned and controlled by upper class influences based on campaign contributions and political lobbying.
working as intended. democracy is a mechanism for elites to share sovereignty. "people" never had any to begin with.
people, we are being manipulated and exploited
well, the alternative is them sorting it out with violence instead. oh wait ...
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me, i like democracy, it inflicts people with the governments they deserve
greedy, irresponsible and selfish people get greedy, irresponsible and selfish governments
just saying
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grow up.
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You can't "both sides" this, one is clearly far worse than the other. I'm no fan of the Democrats but at least they aren't openly talking about dismantling democracy and doing everything they can to take away fundamental rights.
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there are however dark matters. for instance, just look at classism, it's proof positive some people are black holes
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There is no dark matter
You're right. This is merely a fancy term to describe the 95% of something out there we know nothing about.
Within our (limited) understanding, it’s “matter” of some kind. Until we prove it’s not.
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This is merely a fancy term to describe the 95% of something out there we know nothing about.
Cosmologists think the universe is about 5% ordinary matter, but only 27% dark matter. The rest is dark energy, not dark matter.
Eddington limit? (Score:2)
The Eddington limit is about stars and not about black holes. There is nothing to balance in case of a black hole. Its luminosity depends on the surrounding material, friction and how much is falling into the black hole.
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There is nothing to balance in case of a black hole
Yes, there is. The accretion disk of a growing black hole emits light, and it is the radiation pressure of that light that determines the point at which the black hole eventually stops growing - that radiation pressure reaches a point where it prevents any further matter from getting close enough to the black hole to be accreted. So the Eddington Luminosity absolutely applies to an actively growing black hole.
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Eat stuff like your children live here.
If you don't learn from the past, you're doomed to (Score:2)
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Publish or perish.
There aren't that many in the field in an absolute sense who are qualified to to do peer review on anything the others publish.
So lots of stuff gets published. Is accepted as fact. We put up a new telescope or instrument of some sort and are astounded that half of the laws are the universe we made up simply aren't true. Repeat each generation of new scientists.
You'll see the same happen in other fields. Anthropology told us North America was first conixed from Asia about 7k BC. Then 1
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Given that science these days (and probably at every point in existence of humans) isn't a sacred, 100% dependable source of facts...
How do I counter flat earthers at this point? Or anti-vaxxers. Being an autist, I am forced to be rather overly precise when using phrases like "we know".
Yes, I'm pretty sure that the earth is round and I'm pretty sure quite a few of the experiments to prove it are correct. But if they ask me "Can you be one hundred percent certain?" I'll always have to say "Well, no".
Yes, it
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But if they ask me "Can you be one hundred percent certain?" I'll always have to say "Well, no".
Terrible example. We are 100% certain about the shape of the planet. There is ZERO chance of being wrong here. None. It is sort of slightly oval but mostly round.
We are not 100% certain where detection, observation and reproduction are difficult. Here we rely on multiple, overlapping, data to test the current prevailing hypothesis to abstraction. If we continually fail to disprove - and that is actually the whole point behind the scientific method - the hypothesis then we accept that it is very likely true
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Science rarely "says" anything is fact, their statements are usually if theory A is correct, then B. It is people like you who promote those statements to "Science says B".
Oh dear (Score:1)