Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have observed an extremely red, quasar-like object — named A2744-QSO1 — behind the strongly lensing galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Its colors suggest that the black hole in A2744-QSO1 lies behind a thick veil of dust obscuring much of its light. The researchers have also measured the black hole’s mass (40 million solar masses) and discovered that it was significantly more massive, compared to its host galaxy, than what has been seen in more local examples. The discovery suggests that it may represent the missing link between black hole seeds and the first luminous quasars.
“We were very excited when Webb started sending its first data,” said Dr. Lukas Furtak, a postdoctoral researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
“We were scanning the data that arrived for the UNCOVER program and three very compact yet red-blooming objects prominently stood out and caught our eyes.”
“Their ‘red-dot’ appearance immediately led us to suspect that it was a quasar-like object.”
“We used a numerical lensing model that we had constructed for the Abell 2744 galaxy cluster to determine that the three red dots had to be multiple images of the same background source, seen when the Universe was only some 700 million years old,” said Dr. Adi Zitrin, also from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
“Analysis of the object’s colors indicated that it was not a typical star-forming galaxy,” said Professor Rachel Bezanson, an astronomer at the University of Pittsburgh.
“This further supported the supermassive black hole hypothesis.”
“Together with its compact size, it became evident this was likely a supermassive black hole, although it was still different from other quasars found at those early times.”
The astronomers then analyzed the JWST/NIRSpec spectra of A2744-QSO1.
“The spectra were just mind blowing,” said Swinburne University of Technology’s Professor Ivo Labbé.
“By…
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