Supermassive black hole - Wikipedia

Supermassive black hole - Wikipedia
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Largest type of black hole
This article is about the astronomical object. For the song by Muse, see
Supermassive Black Hole (song)
The first direct image of a supermassive black hole, found in the galactic core of
Messier 87
supermassive black hole
SMBH
or sometimes
SBH
is the largest type of
black hole
, with its
mass
being
on the order of
hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions, of times the mass of the
Sun
). Black holes are a class of
astronomical objects
that have undergone
gravitational collapse
, leaving behind
spheroidal
regions of space that nothing, not even
light
, can escape. Observational evidence indicates that almost every large
galaxy
has a supermassive black hole at its
center
For example, the
Milky Way
galaxy has a
supermassive black hole at its center
, corresponding to the
radio source
Sagittarius A*
Accretion
of
interstellar gas
onto supermassive black holes is the process responsible for powering
active galactic nuclei
(AGNs) and
quasars
Two supermassive black holes have been directly imaged by the
Event Horizon Telescope
; these are
Sagittarius A
, at the
center of the Milky Way
, and the black hole at the center of
Messier 87
, a giant
elliptical galaxy
Description
edit
Supermassive black holes are classically defined as black holes with a
mass
above 100,000 (
10
solar masses
); some have masses of several billion
10
Supermassive black holes have physical properties that clearly distinguish them from lower-mass classifications. First, the
tidal forces
near the
event horizon
are significantly weaker for supermassive black holes. The tidal force on a body at a black hole's event horizon is inversely proportional to the square of the black hole's mass:
11
a person at the event horizon of a 10 million
black hole experiences about the same tidal force between their head and feet as a person on the surface of the Earth. Unlike with
stellar-mass black holes
, one would not experience
significant tidal force
until very deep into the black hole's event horizon.
12
It is somewhat counterintuitive that the
density
of an SMBH (defined as the mass of the black hole divided by the volume within its
Schwarzschild radius
) can be less than the density of
water
13
This is because the Schwarzschild radius (
{\displaystyle r_{\text{s}}}
) is directly
proportional
to its mass. Since the volume of a spherical object (such as the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole) is directly proportional to the cube of the radius, the density of a black hole is inversely proportional to the square of the mass, and thus higher mass black holes have a lower
average density
14
The Schwarzschild radius of the event horizon of a nonrotating and uncharged supermassive black hole of around 1 billion
is comparable to the
semi-major axis
of the orbit of
Uranus
, or about 19
AU
15
16
Some astronomers refer to black holes of greater than 5 billion
as
ultramassive black holes
UMBHs
or
UBHs
),
17
but the term is not broadly used. Possible examples include the black holes at the cores of
TON 618
NGC 6166
ESO 444-46
and
NGC 4889
18
which are among the
most massive black holes
known.
Some studies have suggested that the maximum natural mass that a black hole can reach, while being luminous accretors (featuring an accretion disk), is typically on the order of about 50 billion
19
20
However, a 2020 study suggested even larger black holes, dubbed
stupendously large black holes
SLABs
), with masses greater than 100 billion
, could exist based on used models; some studies place the black hole at the core of
Phoenix A
in this category.
21
22
History of research
edit
The story of how supermassive black holes were found began with the investigation by
Maarten Schmidt
of the radio source
3C 273
in 1963. Initially this was thought to be a star, but the spectrum proved puzzling. It was determined to be
hydrogen
emission lines that had been
redshifted
, indicating the object was moving away from the Earth.
23
Hubble's law
showed that the object was located several billion
light-years
away, and thus must be emitting the energy equivalent of hundreds of galaxies. The rate of light variations of the source dubbed a
quasi-stellar object
, or quasar, suggested the emitting region had a diameter of one
parsec
or less. Four such sources had been identified by 1964.
24
In 1963,
Fred Hoyle
and
W. A. Fowler
proposed the existence of hydrogen-burning
supermassive stars
(SMS) as an explanation for the compact dimensions and high energy output of quasars. These would have a mass of about
10
10
. However,
Richard Feynman
noted stars above a certain critical mass are dynamically unstable and would collapse into a black hole, at least if they were non-rotating.
25
Fowler then proposed that these supermassive stars would undergo a series of collapse and explosion oscillations, thereby explaining the energy output pattern. Appenzeller and Fricke (1972) built models of this behavior, but found that the resulting star would still undergo collapse, concluding that a non-rotating
0.75
10
SMS "cannot escape collapse to a black hole by burning its hydrogen through the
CNO cycle
".
26
Edwin E. Salpeter
and
Yakov Zeldovich
made the proposal in 1964 that matter falling onto a massive compact object would explain the properties of quasars. It would require a mass of around
10
to match the output of these objects.
Donald Lynden-Bell
noted in 1969 that the infalling gas would form a flat disk that spirals into the central "
Schwarzschild throat
". He noted that the relatively low output of nearby galactic cores implied these were old, inactive quasars.
27
Meanwhile, in 1967,
Martin Ryle
and
Malcolm Longair
suggested that nearly all sources of extra-galactic radio emission could be explained by a model in which particles are ejected from galaxies at
relativistic velocities
, meaning they are moving near the
speed of light
28
Martin Ryle, Malcolm Longair, and
Peter Scheuer
then proposed in 1973 that the compact central nucleus could be the original energy source for these
relativistic jets
27
Arthur M. Wolfe
and
Geoffrey Burbidge
noted in 1970 that the large velocity dispersion of the stars in the nuclear region of
elliptical galaxies
could only be explained by a large mass concentration at the nucleus; larger than could be explained by ordinary stars. They showed that the behavior could be explained by a massive black hole with up to
10
10
, or a large number of smaller black holes with masses below
10
29
Dynamical evidence for a massive dark object was found at the core of the active elliptical galaxy
Messier 87
in 1978, initially estimated at
10
30
Discovery of similar behavior in other galaxies soon followed, including the
Andromeda Galaxy
in 1984 and the
Sombrero Galaxy
in 1988.
Donald Lynden-Bell and
Martin Rees
hypothesized in 1971 that the center of the Milky Way galaxy would contain a massive black hole.
31
Sagittarius A* was discovered and named on February 13 and 15, 1974, by astronomers Bruce Balick and Robert Brown using the
Green Bank Interferometer
of the
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
32
They discovered a radio source that emits
synchrotron radiation
; it was found to be dense and immobile because of its gravitation. This was, therefore, the first indication that a supermassive black hole exists in the center of the Milky Way.
The
Hubble Space Telescope
, launched in 1990, provided the resolution needed to perform more refined observations of galactic nuclei. In 1994 the
Faint Object Spectrograph
on the Hubble was used to observe Messier 87, finding that ionized gas was orbiting the central part of the nucleus at a velocity of ±500 km/s. The data indicated a concentrated mass of
(2.4
0.7)
10
lay within a
0.25
span, providing strong evidence of a supermassive black hole.
33
Using the
Very Long Baseline Array
to observe
Messier 106
, Miyoshi et al. (1995) were able to demonstrate that the emission from an H
maser
in this galaxy came from a gaseous disk in the nucleus that orbited a concentrated mass of
3.6
10
, which was constrained to a radius of 0.13 parsecs. Their ground-breaking research noted that a swarm of solar mass black holes within a radius this small would not survive for long without undergoing collisions, making a supermassive black hole the sole viable candidate.
34
Accompanying this observation which provided the first confirmation of supermassive black holes was the discovery
35
of the highly broadened, ionised iron Kα emission line (6.4 keV) from the galaxy MCG-6-30-15. The broadening was due to the gravitational redshift of the light as it escaped from just 3 to 10 Schwarzschild radii from the black hole.
On April 10, 2019, the
Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
released the first horizon-scale image of a black hole, in the center of the galaxy Messier 87.
In March 2020, astronomers suggested that additional subrings should form the
photon ring
, proposing a way of better detecting these signatures in the first black hole image.
36
37
In 2020, the
Nobel Prize in Physics
was awarded jointly to
Andrea Ghez
and
Reinhard Genzel
"for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy"
38
This was considered the first definitive confirmation that Sagittarius A* is indeed a supermassive black hole.
Formation
edit
An artist's conception of a supermassive black hole surrounded by an accretion disk and emitting a
relativistic jet
The origin of supermassive black holes remains an active field of research. Astrophysicists agree that black holes can grow by
accretion
of matter and by
merging
with other black holes.
39
40
There are several hypotheses for the formation mechanisms and initial masses of the progenitors, or "seeds", of supermassive black holes. Independently of the specific formation channel for the black hole seed, given sufficient mass nearby, it could accrete to become an
intermediate-mass black hole
and possibly a SMBH if the accretion rate persists.
41
Distant and early supermassive black holes, such as
J0313–1806
42
and
ULAS J1342+0928
43
are hard to explain so soon after the Big Bang. Some postulate they might come from direct collapse of dark matter with self-interaction.
44
45
46
A small minority of sources argue that they may be evidence that the Universe is the result of a
Big Bounce
, instead of a Big Bang, with these supermassive black holes being formed before the Big Bounce.
47
48
First stars
edit
Main articles:
Population III star
Quasi-star
, and
Dark star (dark matter)
This section needs to be
updated
Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.
November 2022
The early progenitor seeds may be black holes of tens or perhaps hundreds of
that are left behind by the explosions of massive stars and grow by accretion of matter. Another model involves a dense stellar cluster undergoing core collapse as the negative heat capacity of the system drives the
velocity dispersion
in the core to
relativistic
speeds.
49
50
Before the first stars, large gas clouds could collapse into a "
quasi-star
", which would in turn collapse into a black hole of around 20
41
These stars may have also been formed by
dark matter halos
drawing in enormous amounts of gas by gravity, which would then produce supermassive stars with tens of thousands of
51
52
The "quasi-star" becomes unstable to radial perturbations because of electron-positron pair production in its core and could collapse directly into a black hole without a
supernova
explosion (which would eject most of its mass, preventing the black hole from growing as fast). A 2018 theory proposes that SMBH seeds were formed in the very early universe each from the collapse of a
supermassive star
with mass of around 100,000
53
Direct-collapse and primordial black holes
edit
Large, high-redshift clouds of metal-free gas,
54
when irradiated by a sufficient intense flux of
Lyman–Werner photons
55
can avoid cooling and fragmenting, thus collapsing as a single object due to
self-gravitation
56
57
The core of the collapsing object reaches extremely large values of matter density, of the order of about
10
g/cm
, and triggers a
general relativistic
instability.
58
Thus, the object collapses directly into a black hole, without passing from the intermediate phase of a star, or of a quasi-star. These objects have a typical mass of about 100,000
and are named
direct collapse black holes
59
A 2022 computer simulation showed that the first supermassive black holes can arise in rare turbulent clumps of gas, called primordial halos, that were fed by unusually strong streams of cold gas. The key simulation result was that cold flows suppressed star formation in the turbulent halo until the halo's gravity was finally able to overcome the turbulence and formed two direct-collapse black holes of 31,000
and 40,000
. The birth of the first SMBHs can therefore be a result of standard cosmological structure formation.
60
61
Artist's impression of the huge outflow ejected from the quasar
SDSS J1106+1939
62
Artist's illustration of galaxy with jets from a supermassive black hole
63
Primordial black holes
(PBHs) could have been produced directly from external pressure in the first moments after the Big Bang. These black holes would then have more time than any of the above models to accrete, allowing them sufficient time to reach supermassive sizes. Formation of black holes from the deaths of the first stars has been extensively studied and corroborated by observations. The other models for black hole formation listed above are theoretical.
The formation of a supermassive black hole requires a relatively small volume of highly dense matter having small
angular momentum
. Normally, the process of accretion involves transporting a large initial endowment of angular momentum outwards, and this appears to be the limiting factor in black hole growth. This is a major component of the theory of
accretion disks
. Gas accretion is both the most efficient and the most conspicuous way in which black holes grow. The majority of the mass growth of supermassive black holes is thought to occur through episodes of rapid gas accretion, which are observable as
active galactic nuclei
or quasars.
Observations reveal that quasars were much more frequent when the Universe was younger, indicating that supermassive black holes formed and grew early. A major constraining factor for theories of supermassive black hole formation is the observation of distant luminous quasars, which indicate that supermassive black holes of billions of
had already formed when the Universe was less than one billion years old. This suggests that supermassive black holes arose very early in the Universe, inside the first massive galaxies.
citation needed
An artist's impression of stars born in winds from supermassive black holes.
64
Maximum mass limit
edit
There is a natural upper limit to how large supermassive black holes can grow. Supermassive black holes in any quasar or
active galactic nucleus
(AGN) appear to have a theoretical upper limit of physically around 50 billion
for typical parameters, as anything above this slows growth down to a crawl (the slowdown tends to start around 10 billion
) and causes the unstable accretion disk surrounding the black hole to coalesce into stars that orbit it.
19
65
66
67
A study concluded that the radius of the
innermost stable circular orbit
(ISCO) for SMBH masses above this limit exceeds the
self-gravity
radius, making disc formation no longer possible.
19
A larger upper limit of around 270 billion
was represented as the absolute maximum mass limit for an accreting SMBH in extreme cases, for example its maximal prograde spin with a dimensionless spin parameter of
= 1,
22
19
although the maximum limit for a black hole's spin parameter is very slightly lower at
= 0.9982.
68
At masses just below the limit, the disc luminosity of a field galaxy is likely to be below the
Eddington limit
and not strong enough to trigger the feedback underlying the
M–sigma relation
, so SMBHs close to the limit can evolve above this.
22
It has been noted that black holes close to this limit are likely to be rather even rarer, as it would require the accretion disc to be almost permanently prograde because the black hole grows and the spin-down effect of retrograde accretion is larger than the spin-up by prograde accretion, due to its ISCO and therefore its lever arm.
19
This would require the hole spin to be permanently correlated with a fixed direction of the potential controlling gas flow, within the black hole's host galaxy, and thus would tend to produce a spin axis and hence AGN jet direction, which is similarly aligned with the galaxy. Current observations do not support this correlation.
19
The so-called 'chaotic accretion' presumably has to involve multiple small-scale events, essentially random in time and orientation if it is not controlled by a large-scale potential in this way.
19
This would lead the accretion statistically to spin-down, due to retrograde events having larger lever arms than prograde, and occurring almost as often.
19
There are also other interactions with large SMBHs that trend to reduce their spin, including particularly mergers with other black holes, which can statistically decrease the spin.
19
All of these considerations suggested that SMBHs usually cross the critical theoretical mass limit at modest values of their spin parameters, so that
10
10
in all but rare cases.
19
Although modern UMBHs within quasars and galactic nuclei cannot grow beyond around
(5–27)
10
10
through the accretion disk and as well given the current
age of the universe
, some of these monster black holes in the universe are predicted to still continue to grow up to stupendously large masses of perhaps
10
14
during the collapse of
superclusters
of
galaxies
in the
extremely far future
of the universe.
69
Activity and galactic evolution
edit
Main articles:
Active galactic nucleus
and
Galaxy formation and evolution
Gravitation from supermassive black holes in the center of many galaxies is thought to power active objects such as
Seyfert galaxies
and quasars, and the relationship between the mass of the central black hole and the mass of the host galaxy depends upon the
galaxy type
70
71
An empirical correlation between the size of supermassive black holes and the stellar
velocity dispersion
{\displaystyle \sigma }
of a galaxy
bulge
72
is called the M–sigma relation.
An AGN is now considered to be a galactic core hosting a massive black hole that is accreting matter and displays a sufficiently strong luminosity. The nuclear region of the Milky Way, for example, lacks sufficient luminosity to satisfy this condition. The unified model of AGN is the concept that the large range of observed properties of the AGN taxonomy can be explained using just a small number of physical parameters. For the initial model, these values consisted of the angle of the accretion disk's torus to the line of sight and the luminosity of the source. AGN can be divided into two main groups: a radiative mode AGN in which most of the output is in the form of electromagnetic radiation through an optically thick accretion disk, and a jet mode in which relativistic jets emerge perpendicular to the disk.
73
Mergers and recoiled SMBHs
edit
Main article:
Binary black hole
The
interaction
of a pair of SMBH-hosting galaxies can lead to
merger
events.
Dynamical friction
on the hosted SMBH objects causes them to sink toward the center of the merged mass, eventually forming a pair with a separation of under a kiloparsec. The interaction of this pair with surrounding stars and gas will then gradually bring the SMBH together as a
gravitationally bound
binary system with a separation of ten parsecs or less. Once the pair draw as close as 0.001 parsecs,
gravitational radiation
will cause them to merge. By the time this happens, the resulting galaxy will have long since
relaxed
from the merger event, with the initial
starburst activity
and AGN having faded away.
74
Candidate SMBHs suspected to be recoiled or ejected black holes
The
gravitational waves
from this coalescence can give the resulting SMBH a velocity boost of up to several thousand km/s, propelling it away from the galactic center and possibly even ejecting it from the galaxy. This phenomenon is called a gravitational recoil.
75
The other possible way to eject a black hole is the classical slingshot scenario, also called slingshot recoil. In this scenario first a long-lived binary black hole forms through a merger of two galaxies. A third SMBH is introduced in a second merger and sinks into the center of the galaxy. Due to the
three-body interaction
one of the SMBHs, usually the lightest, is ejected. Due to conservation of linear momentum the other two SMBHs are propelled in the opposite direction as a binary. All SMBHs can be ejected in this scenario.
76
An ejected black hole is called a runaway black hole.
77
There are different ways to detect recoiling black holes. Often a displacement of a quasar/AGN from the center of a galaxy
78
or a
spectroscopic binary
nature of a quasar/AGN is seen as evidence for a recoiled black hole.
79
Candidate recoiling black holes include
NGC 3718
80
SDSS1133
81
3C 186
82
E1821+643
83
and
SDSSJ0927+2943
79
Candidate runaway black holes are
HE0450–2958
78
CID-42
84
and objects around
RCP 28
85
Runaway supermassive black holes may trigger star formation in their wakes.
77
A linear feature near the dwarf galaxy
RCP 28
was interpreted as the star-forming wake of a candidate runaway black hole.
85
86
87
Later it was however found that this feature is likely a bulge-less edge-on galaxy.
88
89
A study using
JWST
spectroscopy did however find more evidence for this object being produced by a runaway black hole.
90
Hawking radiation
edit
Main article:
Hawking radiation
Hawking radiation is
black-body radiation
that is predicted to be released by
black holes
, due to quantum effects near the event horizon. This radiation reduces the mass and energy of black holes, causing them to shrink and ultimately vanish. If black holes evaporate via
Hawking radiation
, a non-rotating and uncharged stupendously large black hole with a mass of
10
11
will evaporate in around
2.1
10
100
years
91
16
Black holes formed during the predicted collapse of superclusters of galaxies in the far future with
10
14
would evaporate over a timescale of up to
2.1
10
109
years
69
16
Evidence
edit
Doppler measurements
edit
Simulation of a side view of a black hole with transparent toroidal ring of ionized matter according to a proposed model
92
for
Sgr A*
. This image shows the result of bending of light from behind the black hole, and it also shows the asymmetry arising by the
Doppler effect
from the extremely high orbital speed of the matter in the ring.
Some of the best evidence for the presence of black holes is provided by the
Doppler effect
whereby light from nearby orbiting matter is red-shifted when receding and blue-shifted when advancing. For matter very close to a black hole the orbital speed must be comparable with the speed of light, so receding matter will appear very faint compared with advancing matter, which means that systems with intrinsically symmetric discs and rings will acquire a highly asymmetric visual appearance. This effect has been allowed for in modern computer-generated images such as the example presented here, based on a plausible model
92
for the supermassive black hole in
Sgr A*
at the center of the Milky Way. However, the resolution provided by presently available telescope technology is still insufficient to confirm such predictions directly.
What already have been observed directly in many systems are the lower non-relativistic velocities of matter orbiting further out from what are presumed to be black holes. Direct Doppler measures of water
masers
surrounding the nuclei of nearby galaxies have revealed a very fast
Keplerian motion
, only possible with a high concentration of matter in the center. Currently, the only known objects that can pack enough matter in such a small space are black holes, or things that will evolve into black holes within astrophysically short timescales. For
active galaxies
farther away, the width of broad spectral lines can be used to probe the gas orbiting near the event horizon. The technique of
reverberation mapping
uses variability of these lines to measure the mass and perhaps the spin of the black hole that powers active galaxies.
In the Milky Way
edit
Inferred orbits of six stars around supermassive black hole candidate Sagittarius A* at the Milky Way
Galactic Center
93
Evidence indicates that the Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center, 26,000
light-years
from the
Solar System
, in a region called
Sagittarius A*
94
because:
The star
S2
follows an
elliptical orbit
with a
period
of 15.2 years and a
pericenter
(closest distance) of 17
light-hours
1.8
10
13
or 120 AU) from the center of the central object.
From the motion of star S2, the object's mass can be estimated as 4.0 million
95
or about
7.96
10
36
kg
The radius of the central object must be less than 17 light-hours, because otherwise S2 would collide with it. Observations of the star S14
96
indicate that the radius is no more than 6.25 light-hours, about the diameter of
Uranus
' orbit.
No known
astronomical object
other than a black hole can contain 4.0 million
in this volume of space.
96
Infrared observations of bright flare activity near Sagittarius A* show orbital motion of plasma with a
period
of
45
15 min
at a separation of six to ten times the gravitational radius of the candidate SMBH. This emission is consistent with a circularized orbit of a polarized "hot spot" on an accretion disk in a strong magnetic field. The radiating matter is orbiting at 30% of the speed of light just outside the
innermost stable circular orbit
97
On January 5, 2015, NASA reported observing an
X-ray
flare 400 times brighter than usual, a record-breaker, from Sagittarius A*. The unusual event may have been caused by the breaking apart of an
asteroid
falling into the black hole or by the entanglement of
magnetic field lines
within gas flowing into Sagittarius A*, according to astronomers.
98
Detection of an unusually bright
X-ray
flare from Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole in the center of the
Milky Way galaxy
98
Sagittarius A* imaged by the
Event Horizon Telescope
Outside the Milky Way
edit
Artist's impression of a supermassive black hole tearing apart a star. Below: supermassive black hole devouring a star in galaxy
RX J1242−11
– X-ray (left) and optical (right).
99
Unambiguous dynamical evidence for supermassive black holes exists only for a handful of galaxies;
100
these include the Milky Way, the
Local Group
galaxies
M31
and
M32
, and a few galaxies beyond the Local Group, such as
NGC 4395
. In these galaxies, the
root mean square
(or rms) velocities of the stars or gas rises proportionally to 1/
near the center, indicating a central point mass. In all other galaxies observed to date, the rms velocities are flat, or even falling, toward the center, making it impossible to state with certainty that a supermassive black hole is present.
100
Nevertheless, it is commonly accepted that the center of nearly every galaxy contains a supermassive black hole.
101
The reason for this assumption is the
M–sigma relation
, a tight (low scatter) relation between the mass of the hole in the 10 or so galaxies with secure detections, and the velocity dispersion of the stars in the bulges of those galaxies.
102
This correlation, although based on just a handful of galaxies, suggests to many astronomers a strong connection between the formation of the black hole and the galaxy itself.
101
On March 28, 2011, a supermassive black hole was seen tearing a mid-size star apart.
103
That is the only likely explanation of the observations that day of sudden X-ray radiation and the follow-up broad-band observations.
104
105
The source was previously an inactive galactic nucleus, and from study of the outburst the galactic nucleus is estimated to be a SMBH with mass of the order of a million
. This rare event is assumed to be a
relativistic
outflow (material being emitted in a jet at a significant fraction of the speed of light) from a star
tidally disrupted
by the SMBH. A significant fraction of a solar mass of material is expected to have accreted onto the SMBH. Subsequent long-term observation will allow this assumption to be confirmed if the emission from the jet decays at the expected rate for mass accretion onto a SMBH.
Individual studies
edit
Hubble Space Telescope
photograph of the 4,400 light-year-long
relativistic jet
of Messier 87, which is matter being ejected by the
6.5
10
supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy
The nearby Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light-years away, contains a
1.4
+0.65
−0.45
10
(140 million)
central black hole, significantly larger than the Milky Way's.
106
The largest supermassive black hole in the Milky Way's vicinity appears to be that of Messier 87 (i.e., M87*), at a mass of
(6.5
0.7)
10
(c. 6.5 billion)
at a distance of 48.92 million light-years.
107
The supergiant elliptical galaxy
NGC 4889
, at a distance of 336 million light-years away in the
Coma Berenices
constellation, contains a black hole measured to be
2.1
+3.5
−1.3
10
10
(21 billion)
108
Masses of black holes in quasars can be estimated via indirect methods that are subject to substantial uncertainty. The quasar
TON 618
is an example of an object with an extremely large black hole, estimated at
4.07
10
10
(40.7 billion)
109
Its redshift is 2.219. Other examples of quasars with large estimated black hole masses are the hyperluminous quasar
APM 08279+5255
, with an estimated mass of
10
10
(10 billion)
110
and the quasar
SMSS J215728.21-360215.1
, with a mass of
(3.4
0.6)
10
10
(34 billion)
, or nearly 10,000 times the mass of the black hole at the Milky Way's Galactic Center.
111
Some galaxies, such as the galaxy
4C +37.11
, appear to have two supermassive black holes at their centers, forming a
binary system
. If they collided, the event would create strong
gravitational waves
112
Binary supermassive black holes are believed to be a common consequence of
galactic mergers
113
The binary pair in
OJ 287
, 3.5 billion light-years away, contains the most massive black hole in a pair, with a mass estimated at 18.348 billion
114
115
In 2011, a super-massive black hole was discovered in the dwarf galaxy
Henize 2-10
, which has no bulge. The precise implications for this discovery on black hole formation are unknown, but may indicate that black holes formed before bulges.
116
A gas cloud with several times the mass of the Earth is accelerating towards a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.
In 2012, astronomers reported an unusually large mass of approximately 17 billion
for the black hole in the compact,
lenticular galaxy
NGC 1277
, which lies 220 million light-years away in the constellation
Perseus
. The putative black hole has approximately 59 percent of the mass of the bulge of this lenticular galaxy (14 percent of the total stellar mass of the galaxy).
117
Another study reached a very different conclusion: this black hole is not particularly overmassive, estimated at between 2 and 5 billion
with 5 billion
being the most likely value.
118
On February 28, 2013, astronomers reported on the use of the
NuSTAR
satellite to accurately measure the spin of a supermassive black hole for the first time, in
NGC 1365
, reporting that the event horizon was spinning at almost the speed of light.
119
120
In September 2014, data from different X-ray telescopes have shown that the extremely small, dense,
ultracompact dwarf galaxy
M60-UCD1
hosts a 20 million solar mass black hole at its center, accounting for more than 10% of the total mass of the galaxy. The discovery is quite surprising, since the black hole is five times more massive than the Milky Way's black hole despite the galaxy being less than five-thousandths the mass of the Milky Way.
Some galaxies lack any supermassive black holes in their centers. Although most galaxies with no supermassive black holes are very small, dwarf galaxies, one discovery remains mysterious: The supergiant elliptical cD galaxy
A2261-BCG
has not been found to contain an active supermassive black hole of at least
10
10
, despite the galaxy being one of the largest galaxies known; over six times the size and one thousand times the mass of the Milky Way. Despite that, several studies gave very large mass values for a possible central black hole inside A2261-BGC, such as about as large as
6.5
+10.9
−4.1
10
10
or as low as
(6–11)
10
. Since a supermassive black hole will only be visible while it is accreting, a supermassive black hole can be nearly invisible, except in its effects on stellar orbits. This implies that either A2261-BGC has a central black hole that is accreting at a low level or has a mass rather below
10
10
121
In December 2017, astronomers reported the detection of the most distant quasar known by this time,
ULAS J1342+0928
, containing the most distant supermassive black hole, at a reported redshift of z = 7.54, surpassing the redshift of 7 for the previously known most distant quasar
ULAS J1120+0641
122
123
124
Supermassive black hole and smaller black hole in galaxy
OJ 287
Comparisons of large and small black holes in galaxy OJ 287 to the
Solar System
Black hole disk flares in galaxy OJ 287
(1:22; animation; 28 April 2020)
The 7 billion
supermassive black hole of
NeVe 1
is responsible for the
Ophiuchus Supercluster eruption
– the most energetic eruption ever detected.
From:
Chandra X-ray Observatory
In February 2020, astronomers reported the discovery of the
Ophiuchus Supercluster eruption
, the most energetic event in the Universe ever detected since the
Big Bang
125
126
127
It occurred in the Ophiuchus Cluster in the galaxy
NeVe 1
, caused by the accretion of nearly 270 million
of material by its central 7 billion
supermassive black hole.
128
The eruption lasted for about 100 million years and released 5.7 million times more energy than the most powerful
gamma-ray burst
known. The eruption released shock waves and jets of high-energy particles that punched the
intracluster medium
, creating a cavity about 1.5 million light-years wide – ten times the Milky Way's diameter.
129
125
126
127
In February 2021, astronomers released, for the first time, a very high-resolution image of 25,000 active supermassive black holes, covering four percent of the
Northern celestial hemisphere
, based on
ultra-low radio wavelengths
, as detected by the
Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR)
in Europe.
130
In August 2025, a SMBH in
little red dot
CAPERS-LRD-z9
was reported whose canonical mass was estimated to be
3.8
+27.8
−3.35
10
(38 million)
131
This represents a confirmed massive black hole very early in the history of the universe (redshift of 9.288, only 500 million years after the big bang).
See also
edit
Black holes in fiction
Galactic Center GeV excess
– Unexplained gamma rays from the Galactic Center
Hypercompact stellar system
– Cluster of stars around a supermassive black hole
Spin-flip
– Sudden change of spin axis caused by merging with another black hole
Notes
edit
The acronym
SBH
is commonly used for
stellar-mass black hole
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Further reading
edit
Fulvio Melia (2003).
The Edge of Infinity. Supermassive Black Holes in the Universe
. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
978-0-521-81405-8
OL
22546388M
Carr, Bernard; Kühnel, Florian (2022).
"Primordial black holes as dark matter candidates"
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10.21468/SciPostPhysLectNotes.48
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Chakraborty, Amlan; Chanda, Prolay K.; Pandey, Kanhaiya Lal; Das, Subinoy (2022).
"Formation and Abundance of Late-forming Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter"
The Astrophysical Journal
932
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arXiv
2204.09628
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2022ApJ...932..119C
doi
10.3847/1538-4357/ac6ddd
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Ferrarese, Laura
Merritt, David
(2002). "Supermassive Black Holes".
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Krolik, Julian (1999).
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Dotan, Calanit; Rossi, Elena M.; Shaviv, Nir J. (2011).
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Fiacconi, Davide; Rossi, Elena M. (2017).
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Black holes
Outline
Types
BTZ black hole
Schwarzschild
Rotating
Charged
Virtual
Kugelblitz
Supermassive
Primordial
Direct collapse
Rogue
Malament–Hogarth spacetime
Size
Micro
Extremal
Electron
Stellar
Microquasar
Intermediate-mass
Supermassive
Active galactic nucleus
Quasar
LQG
Blazar
BL Lac
FSRQ
Formation
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Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit
Oppenheimer–Snyder model
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Supernova
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Gamma-ray burst
Binary black hole
Quark star
Supermassive star
Quasi-star
Supermassive dark star
X-ray binary
Properties
Astrophysical jet
Gravitational singularity
Ring singularity
BKL singularity
Shock singularity
Theorems
Event horizon
Photon sphere
Innermost stable circular orbit
Ergosphere
Penrose process
Blandford–Znajek process
Accretion disk
Hawking radiation
Gravitational lens
Microlens
Cauchy horizon
Mass inflation
Bondi accretion
M–sigma relation
Quasi-periodic oscillation
Thermodynamics
Bekenstein bound
Bousso's holographic bound
Immirzi parameter
Schwarzschild radius
Spaghettification
Issues
Information paradox
Complementarity
Soft hair
Cosmic censorship
ER = EPR
Final parsec problem
Firewall (physics)
Holographic principle
No-hair theorem
Metrics
Schwarzschild
Derivation
Kerr
Reissner–Nordström
Kerr–Newman
Hayward
Alternatives
Nonsingular black hole models
Black star
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