The most
distant black hole ever found is nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth,
astronomers announced today.
The
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope spotted the bright burst of light the black hole created as
it sucked up nearby gas, heating it and causing it to glow very brightly in
what's known as a quasar.
The
distance to the quasar, which sits in the constellation Pisces, was determined
by measuring the amount of redshift in the lines of the quasar's spectrum, or
prism of light. Because light is "redshifted" to longer wavelengths as an
object moves away from an observer, the higher the redshift, the further away
the object is—and this quasar had quite a large redshift.
"As soon as
I saw the spectrum with its booming emission line, I knew this one was a long
way away," said team member Chris Willott of the University of Ottawa.
Because the
Big
Bang is believed to have occurred around 13.7 billion years ago,
astronomers are seeing the quasar as it appeared a mere 1 billion years after
the Big Bang, which gives them a unique view into universe's past.
Sometime
around the universe's one billionth birthday, the first stars and galaxies
began to shine and ionized all of the hydrogen atoms in the universe (or
removed an electron from each atom). The quasar's bright light
illuminates the hydrogen gas in front of it, which lets astronomers see whether
the atoms still have their electrons attached or not, which could help pin down
the date of this momentous event.
The quasar
might also be able to help astronomers learn about the growth of the first
black holes; the black hole powering this quasar is estimated to be about 500
million times the mass of the sun, which is thought to be unusual for an early
black hole.
"It is
puzzling how such enormous black holes are found so early on in the universe ... because
we believe that black holes take a long time to grow," said team member John
Hutchings of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics.
The finding
was announced at the annual conference of the Canadian Astronomical Society.
advertisement
