Ancient blazar beams cosmic light across 13 billion km
Scientists have discovered a new supermassive black hole directing a beam of energy toward our planet. This mysterious object, with a mass equivalent to 700 million suns, is the oldest observed phenomenon of its kind.
The black hole was detected from a distance of about 13 billion kilometres, so its energy stream reaches us from the early days of the universe's existence, up to 800 million years after the Big Bang. This discovery could change how we perceive the formation and beginnings of the cosmos.
What is a blazer?
A blazar is an active galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its centre. Such objects emit narrow streams of high-energy particles (known as jets) from their poles, moving at speeds close to the speed of light. When one of these jets is directed towards Earth, its source is a blazar. They are characterised by exceptional brightness and intense radiation originating from these streams of particles.
Mysteries from the early universe
The Astrophysical Journal Letters (18 December 2024) published the discovery of a new blazar named J0410-0139. The discovery was made using data from various telescopes, including the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, the Magellan Telescope, and the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (located in Chile), as well as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Earth orbit.
Radio waves from the early universe travelled over 13 billion kilometres to reach Earth, a record distance from which such cosmic objects have been observed. These unique circumstances will allow scientists to delve into the intricacies of the early cosmos and learn how the first supermassive black holes formed.
Researchers have discovered fewer than 3,000 blazars to date, but they have never observed one as distant as J0410-0139. The previous record-holder for distance was PSO J0309+27, discovered in 2020. It is located about 12.7 billion kilometres from Earth, making it approximately 100 million years younger than J0410-0139. Although the age difference seems small compared to the age of the universe, during those 100 million years, a supermassive black hole can grow several orders of magnitude, making this discovery significant.
The discovery of this blazar suggests that during this period of cosmic history, many other supermassive black holes may have existed that did not emit jets or directed their radiation elsewhere, away from Earth.
