James Webb Telescope Reveals Sharpest-Ever Look at Edge of Black Hole — and It Could Solve Major Galactic Mystery
BALTIMORE (AP) — The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared image yet of the region around a supermassive black hole in the Circinus galaxy, revealing the source of mysterious infrared emissions, researchers reported. The findings, published Jan. 13 in Nature Communications, come from an international team led by Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez of the University of South Carolina and Deepashri Thatte of the Space Telescope Science Institute. The galaxy lies about 13 million light-years from Earth.
The discovery identifies the infrared excess as originating from the inner wall of a dusty torus feeding the black hole, overturning prior assumptions that it stemmed from outflows, according to the study. Researchers combined JWST data with ground-based observations to achieve this resolution, allowing them to peer through dust that obscures such regions in visible light. This refines models of how supermassive black holes grow and influence their host galaxies.
The Circinus galaxy hosts an active supermassive black hole that accretes material through a doughnut-shaped torus and a thin accretion disk, the study states. JWST's infrared instruments, including NIRCam and MIRI, provided sub-arcsecond details of these structures, NASA said in a Jan. 13 release. Previous observations from the 1990s attributed the infrared brightness to superheated material flowing away from the black hole, but the new data shifts focus to infalling dusty material.
"This artist’s concept depicts the central engine of the Circinus galaxy, visualizing the supermassive black hole fed by a thick, dusty torus that glows in infrared light," NASA stated in its coverage of the findings.
The reversal challenges decades-old beliefs about active galactic nuclei, or AGN, which include supermassive black holes at galaxy centers, according to the researchers. Supermassive black holes, with masses millions to billions of times that of the sun, co-evolve with their galaxies through accretion processes that regulate star formation via feedback like outflows and jets. The study resolves a puzzle about energy budgets in these systems by pinpointing the infrared source to the torus's inner edge, where tidal forces accelerate infalling matter.
Astronomers have observed excess infrared emission around AGN for decades, leading to outflow models in the 1990s, sources familiar with the research said. JWST builds on the Hubble Space Telescope's wide-field views by offering superior mid-infrared sensitivity to dust-obscured areas. The findings align with the unified AGN model, which proposes that a torus obscures the black hole from certain viewing angles.
The international team analyzed JWST observations alongside multi-wavelength data from ground-based telescopes, the study details. NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency operate JWST, with image processing handled by the Space Telescope Science Institute. Alyssa Pagan of the institute contributed to visualizations, including comparisons with Hubble images for scale.
Implications extend to understanding black hole-galaxy co-evolution across the universe, where about 1 million observable AGN exist, according to astronomical estimates. By clarifying infrared contributions from tori rather than outflows, the research aids simulations of black hole growth rates and feedback mechanisms. This could improve predictions for distant quasars, which resemble the Circinus black hole but lie billions of light-years away.
The study positions JWST as a key tool in post-Hubble astronomy, complementing efforts like the Event Horizon Telescope for radio imaging and XRISM for X-ray studies, though those focus on different aspects. Circinus serves as a nearby laboratory for these processes, researchers noted.
No direct contradictions appeared in reviewed sources, with high agreement on the core discovery and its details. The publication marks a milestone in JWST's contributions since its 2021 launch, NASA emphasized.
Further analysis may quantify torus sizes and infrared flux ratios, pending access to the full Nature Communications paper. The findings do not fully rule out outflows but establish the torus as the dominant infrared source, the study indicates.
