A team of astronomers has uncovered a rare cosmic giant — a distant black hole devouring matter at one of the fastest rates ever observed. The discovery, announced in a recent Chandra X-ray Observatory press release, centers on a quasar named RACS J0320-35, located 12.8 billion light-years from Earth. This means we are seeing the quasar as it appeared only 920 million years after the Big Bang.
What Makes RACS J0320-35 So Unique?
Quasars are powered by supermassive black holes that consume surrounding material trapped in their gravitational pull. As this matter spirals inward, it forms a disk that radiates enormous amounts of energy, making quasars visible across vast cosmic distances.
In the case of RACS J0320-35, NASA’s Chandra data reveals that its black hole is growing between 300 and 3,000 solar masses per year — an astonishing rate estimated to be 2.4 times faster than the Eddington limit, the theoretical maximum for black hole growth.
The artist’s illustration of RACS J0320-35 shows swirling bands of orange, red, and yellow gas encircling a black sphere — the black hole itself. A brilliant jet of energetic particles streaks outward, emphasizing the extraordinary activity at its core.
Cracking the Mystery of Black Hole Formation.
One of the big puzzles in astrophysics is how black holes in the early universe became so massive so quickly. Normally, black holes growing below the Eddington rate would need to start with seed masses of about 10,000 Suns or more to reach billions of solar masses within a billion years.
But if RACS J0320-35 has consistently grown above the Eddington limit, its black hole could have originated in a more conventional way — starting from the collapse of a massive star with less than 100 solar masses.
The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggest that rapid growth may also explain the rare jet of particles blasting from this quasar — a feature not commonly observed in such objects.
The Bigger Picture.
By studying RACS J0320-35, scientists are getting closer to answering fundamental questions about the birth of the first supermassive black holes and the role they played in shaping the young universe.
This groundbreaking discovery is part of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory program, managed by Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with science operations led by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
