In News:

In 2024, an international team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered a low-mass supermassive black hole, LID-568, showing super-Eddington accretion—a rare and extreme feeding process—just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.

About LID-568

Feature                     Description

Type                          Low-mass supermassive black hole

Age                          Formed ~1.5 billion years after Big Bang (Universe’s “youth”)

Discovery                Observed via Chandra (X-ray) & JWST (infrared)

Location                  In a distant galaxy with very low star formation

Feeding Rate          Accreting at ~40× the Eddington limit (super-Eddington accretion)

Key Concepts

Eddington Limit

• Theoretical upper limit on how fast matter can fall into a black hole before radiation pressure balances gravitational pull.
• Exceeding this limit (super-Eddington) is thought to be unstable and short-lived.

Super-Eddington Accretion

• Observed in LID-568, feeding at 40× Eddington rate.
• Suggests rapid, short bursts of black hole growth, not the slow, steady model previously assumed.

Why is LID-568 Important?

Challenges Current Theories

• Traditional black hole growth models require:
  • Long periods (hundreds of millions of years).
  • Seed black holes formed from:
    • Death of first stars (light seeds: 10–100 solar masses).
    • Collapse of primordial gas clouds (heavy seeds: 1,000–100,000 solar masses).
• LID-568 suggests brief, intense growth spurts could create supermassive black holes faster than previously thought.

Impact on Host Galaxy

• Powerful outflows prevent gas accumulation → suppresses star formation.
• Indicates black holes can regulate galaxy evolution, even when young.