Hidden supermassive black hole revealed through hot gas
March 26, 2025
Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist
Astronomers have found radio signals from hot gas surrounding a supermassive black hole. The discovery could help reveal hidden black holes across the universe.
The black hole in question is 12.9 billion light-years away. Its light has reached Earth from a time when the universe was just 800 million years old. The new research, published in Nature Astronomy, is the most detailed look scientists have had at the molecular gas near a black hole from such an early time in the universe’s history.
“The findings help us understand how black holes grow from tiny seeds in the early universe to supermassive black holes, and the challenges posed by dust and gas that can obscure them,” says co-author Takafumi Tsuki, a researcher from the Australian National University.
The dense molecular gas known as J231038.88+185519.7 (or J2310 for short) has been known to astronomers for a while as a quasi-stellar object, otherwise known as a quasar. These are powered by a supermassive black hole at their centre making them among the brightest objects in the universe.
Peering into quasars is hard despite their brightness.
The new study uses ultra-high-resolution observations made by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. This allowed the team to see the heating mechanisms affecting the gas within just a few hundred light-years of the black hole.
More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astronomy/hidden-supermassive-black-hole-universe/