Rapidly growing black hole found, could provide clues on how massive galaxies first evolved: Study

Named COS-87259, this new supermassive black hole is very extreme, forming stars at a rate 1000 times that of our own Milky Way

Astronomers have discovered a rapidly growing black hole in one of the most extreme galaxies known in the very early Universe, according to a new study.

The discovery of the galaxy and the black hole at its centre provided new clues on the formation of the very first supermassive black holes, the researchers from the University of Texas, US, and the University of Arizona, US, said.

Using observations taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a radio observatory sited in Chile, the team have determined that the galaxy, named COS-87259, containing this new supermassive black hole is very extreme, forming stars at a rate 1000 times that of our own Milky Way and containing over a billion solar masses worth of interstellar dust, the study said.

The galaxy shines bright from both this intense burst of star formation and the growing supermassive black hole at its centre, the study said.

The new work is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The black hole is considered to be a new type of primordial black hole - one heavily enshrouded by cosmic "dust", causing nearly all of its light to be emitted in the mid-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, the researchers said.

They have also found that this growing supermassive black hole, frequently referred to as an active galactic nucleus, is generating a strong jet of material moving at near light speed through the host galaxy.