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3w ago

Infinity Galaxy’s Newborn Black Hole Shows Evidence of Direct Collapse

Preliminary velocity data place the million-solar-mass black hole at the heart of surrounding ionized gas, suggesting it formed in place through direct collapse.

Image
The ∞ galaxy is interpreted as the aftermath of a nearly head-on collision between two face-on disk galaxies with massive, compact bulges. The bulges survived the collision, and the inner disk stars were swept up in outwardly expanding collisional rings around the bulges. The nearby galaxy II Hz 4 is the prototype for this kind of binary ring formation (R. Lynds & A. Toomre 1976). Compression and shocks in the colliding gas likely produced a dense gaseous remnant in between the nuclei, as has been observed in the bullet cluster on much larger scales. It is proposed that the black hole formed within this gas. (Credit: van Dokkum et al / The Astrophysical Journal Letters)

Overview

  • The Infinity Galaxy, 8.3 billion light-years away, comprises two colliding spiral galaxies whose merged structure resembles the infinity symbol.
  • Observations from JWST, W. M. Keck Observatory, the VLA and Chandra reveal a million-solar-mass black hole embedded in a dense cloud of ionized gas between the galaxy nuclei.
  • Preliminary velocity measurements align the black hole’s motion with the surrounding gas flows, as expected if it collapsed in situ rather than migrating from a galactic core.
  • These results strengthen the heavy-seed hypothesis, proposing that supermassive black holes can form directly from collapsing gas clouds instead of growing solely through stellar-remnant mergers.
  • The paper detailing these findings was accepted by The Astrophysical Journal Letters and now awaits deeper spectral analysis and further observations to confirm the direct collapse scenario.