Most Distant Quasar Raises Questions

In the February 25 Issue:

Most distant quasar raises questions

Extreme age challenges theories of black hole formation

By Nadia Drake

July 30th, 2011; Vol.180 #3 (p. 12)

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LOOKING BACK IN TIMEA recently identified quasar emits 60 trillion times as much light as the sun. As shown in the illustration above, the quasar’s energy cleaves surrounding hydrogen atoms and produces the reddish bubble enveloping the massive, bright object. In the background are newborn galaxies.Gemini Observatory

Astronomers peering at the early universe have glimpsed the most distant quasar yet. Powered by a black hole of 2 billion solar masses, the quasar appears as it did 12.9 billion years ago, when the universe as humans know it was just beginning to emerge from the Big Bang.

The supermassive black hole is pulling enormous clumps of matter into its gravitational clutches. As a result, the quasar emits 60 trillion times as much light as the sun, an international team reports in the June 30 Nature.

The team identified the object from the U.K. Infrared Telescope’s Infrared Deep Sky Survey, which probes 5 percent of the sky in infrared wavelengths. Daniel Mortlock of Imperial College London, an author of the study, likens the process to panning for gold. “You see many shiny things in the infrared, but not all of them are nuggets,” he says. “We got a big nugget this time.”

Already, the uncharismatically named ULAS J1120+0641 is presenting both clues and puzzles about the early universe.

“The surprising thing is that this object is right at the farthest possible distance we could see,” Mortlock says. The object is so distant that because of the time it took the quasar’s light to reach Earth, astronomers are seeing it as it was just 770 million years after the Big Bang. While theorists had predicted quasars could form that soon after the Big Bang, none had anticipated seeing one so large in the embryonic universe.

“It is like finding a 6-foot-tall child in kindergarten,” says astrophysicist Marta Volonteri, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Prevailing theories suggest that black holes form either from the tiny, dense objects left behind after the deaths of early stars, or they form from the direct collapse of cosmic gases. For the first theory to be correct, Volonteri says, ULAS J1120+0641 would have needed to begin growing before the beginning of time, suggesting that the direct collapse theory is better supported by the quasar’s discovery.

Scientists think there are maybe 100 distant, bright objects like the newly discovered quasar sprinkled throughout the entire sky, and astrophysicist Avi Loeb, at Harvard University, says he hopes sky surveys will find more of them. These quasars, if they exist, could act as beacons of light that help astronomers study the early universe.

The next steps include finding more of these giants in the early cosmic playground and studying the quasar’s neighborhood using different wavelengths.

The discovery is intriguing, notes Chris Willott, of National Research Council Canada, but he adds some caution: “This could be one charmed place in the universe where things are going on very quickly,” he says. “It’s always dangerous if you base everything you know on one object.”

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Comments 13

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What if our theories about the Big Bang are wrong? What if this object had a lot more than 770 million years in which to form? I think this possibility should be considered--before we reject a theory about how it was formed based on the inference that it would have had to start forming before the beginning of time. just a thought from an amateur.

Conrad Seitz

Jul. 1, 2011 at 7:19am
Years on earth do not equal years in space. Time is not a constant, its a variable. Until we understand time itself, we will never know when the big bang actually happened.

jeremy blaylock

Jul. 1, 2011 at 7:19am
The last sentence is extrememly important. It is also extrememly dangerous to imply that something is a fact if any of the conclusions leading to the "fact" are based on assumptions. So take it all with a grain of salt, because assumptions must be made.

Having said that, I'd like to toss this thought out on the floor: What if the "singularity" (an assumption, I might add) wasn't an infinitesimally small point, but instead was an ultra-massive black hole that ripped apart into vast numbers of smaller holes, with many of them becoming the seeds of galaxies? What if dark matter is really just huge clouds of micro-blackholes that collectively outweigh the galaxies they surround?

If the "singularity" was really an ultra-blackhole, then finding giga-sun black holes so early on makes much more sense.

Dr. Momus A. Morgus

Jul. 1, 2011 at 7:19am
A recent paper by Carr & Coley suggests black holes sufficiently large can pass through a cosmic Big Bounce unscathed - this quasar observation would count as evidence in favour of the idea.

Adam Crowl

Jul. 1, 2011 at 7:19am
I like the comment of Adam Crowl, which hints at a more interesting observable universe than anyone could realistically have hoped for. Spying on the cosmos as it looked before time began? Last year you couldn't have sold a plot like that as fiction. Now it might just make it as a grant proposal.

Ralph Dratman

Jul. 4, 2011 at 11:49am
Questions are now arising as to the "originating causes" with respect to recent data ( effects ) emerging from the observation of this massive early universe quasar. The quasar model must be incorrect. This is suggested by anomalies emerging faster than anomalis are being resolved. A sure sign of a flawed model. All blue and white stars and Galactic Cores (and therefore quasars ) have jetting cores. An exanple of vissible jets that can be observed exists in Galaxy M87. M87 has twin jets of some 5000 light yeras long. If Galaxy M87 possesed angular momentum, itwould be a spiral Galaxy. The most distance quasar must have formed as a result of three Black Holes Colliding.
It take three black holes to form "An Internal Event Horizon" and in turn this forms !an Internal / External Event Horizon Continuum " Some readers will realise thet this is the event horizon of a "Black Torus" A Jetting
Bpack Toroidal Object ". As Jetting (identical (M87 again)twin Jets) is instantaneous,". There is always a lead jet and a trailing jet, the trailing jet "Interlaces inside the
lead jet"£which forms thye observed Galactic Structure. We arent looking at Spiral Galxies! We are looking at a Universe full of INTERLACED SPIRAL GALAXIES> Kevin Wilson

Kevin Wilson

Jul. 4, 2011 at 11:49am
Dear Kevin: Brilliant! Now if you could adduce some real evidence for your thesis I'm sure we would all be grateful. Otherwise, this sounds like complete (well, nothing is ever complete) nonsense.

Jack Lass

Jul. 4, 2011 at 11:25pm
Universe-Life Evolution

EmD versus Emc

E = mc2 relates E and m via constant c.
However, since E and c are constant m must also be constant…
Yet for engineering-technology applications the equation is fine.
E=Total[m(1 + D)] relates E and m via the variable D. D is the sum total of distance, in ALL spatial directions, travelled by m since start of reconversion of m to E.
This relationship is science, not engineering or technology. E is constant, m and D are variables. D cannot be less than zero, and m varies with D. This is universal reality.
It is reality that there is no missing E. It is there, transformed to mD. mD is E.
It is reality that there is no missing m. It is there, transformed to mD. mD is E.
Think about it. This is the basis-essence of Evolution, of ALL evolutions. Evolutions are the quantum mechanics of all processes.
Dov Henis
(comments from 22nd century)
==========================
Comprehend Black Holes Function

Black_hole_jets_in_HD
“That could be a sign that the gravitational beast pulls in material at a relatively moderate, regular rate”

“Rethink Evolution/Natural Selection”

“5. Natural Selection is a trait of organisms, life?
No. Natural selection is ubiquitous for ALL mass formats, all spin arrays. It derives from the expansion of the universe. All mass formats, regardless of size and type, from black holes to smallest particles, strive to increase their constrained energy in attempt to postpone their own reconversion to energy, to the energy that fuels cosmic expansion.”
“Evolution is energy temporarily constrained in a mass format to postpone reconversion of the mass to the energy fueling the cosmic expansion”.
　
Dov Henis

Dov Henis

Jul. 5, 2011 at 1:26pm
Any potential for this black hole to be the remnants of the 'primeval atom'? Seems to me that an enormous hot ball of matter and gas exploding in the big bang would leave a little something behind (like supernova's do). Maybe it appears to be older than the big bang because it IS older than the big bang.

Burger

Jul. 5, 2011 at 6:25pm
This is a really good read for me, Must admit that you are one of the best bloggers I ever saw.Thanks for posting this informative article.

seoer chen

Jul. 12, 2011 at 10:59am
I just read the caption below the image of the quasar:

"A recently identified quasar emits 60 trillion times as much light as the sun."

Sixty TRILLION times as much light? Given that the sun is considered an average star, and that the Milky Way contains roughly 200 billion stars, then this one quasar produces as much light as 300 GALAXIES combined. Now THAT's a bunch of light!

What I'm puzzling over is that the quasar has the mass of 2 billion suns, yet puts out the light of 60 trillions suns. This implies that the relationship between mass and luminosity is exponential rather than linear. Interesting. Either that, or "trillion" is a typo.

Dr. Momus A. Morgus

Jul. 13, 2011 at 10:05am
Another metaphorical moment, brought to you by Dr. Momus Morgus:

When imagining the Big Bang, the natural tendency is to think of an explosion we are familiar with - a blast throwing material out basically all at once. What if, instead of an explosion, the Big Bang was more of a Big Flare that lasted much longer than is currently believed? A Big Flare could still have started with a bang - it just kept "burining" longer. Now what if the massive quasar under discussion was simply a chip off the old Big Flare block? A seed. This seed, and many others like it, became the mothers of all galaxies. I have an easier time imagining this than an infintessimally small singularity. So, after the last big crunch, all the matter and energy in our local universe was compressed into an ultra-blackhole, possibly as big as an entire galaxy, that then began peeling off layer by layer, spawning a new generation of flares. To me, this quasar looks like a tree producing galactic seeds.

Dr. Momus A. Morgus

Jul. 13, 2011 at 1:52pm
My theory is that blackholes are a vaccume hole between dimensions. Quasars are only found around blackholes that are distant right? So what says blackholes didnt exsit long before any expansion got to them. The wave if you would meets and goes past a black hole and we only see the end result. The quasar could partly be the trapped energy from the wave that gets caught. The shear size and distance is a play on our eyes.

Mikey

Jul. 14, 2011 at 9:55am

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