Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF-Brera/L. Ighina et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/SAO/M. Weiss;
Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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A Tour of TOI 1227 b - More Videos
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This graphic describes the discovery of a distant black hole that is
growing at one of the fastest rates ever seen, as described in our latest Chandra press release.
The main panel is an artist’s illustration of the quasar named RACS
J0320-35, which is located about 12.8 billion light-years from Earth.
This means the quasar is being seen only about 920 million years after
the big bang.
A quasar is a black hole with large amounts of material in its gravitational grasp, contained in a surrounding disk. These disks generate huge amounts of light, making quasars like RACS J0320-35 visible at enormous distances. The illustration shows this captured material as the red, orange and yellow swirls around the black sphere that represents the black hole. It also shows a jet of energetic particles blasting away from the black hole to the lower right.
After discovering this quasar with other telescopes in 2023, a team of researchers then used Chandra to examine how fast RACS J0320-35 is pulling matter onto the black hole’s surface and, as a result, growing. The Chandra data are shown in the inset in purple.
When matter is pulled toward a black hole it is heated and produces intense radiation over a broad spectrum, including X-rays and optical light. This radiation creates pressure on the infalling material. When the rate of infalling matter reaches a critical value, the radiation pressure balances the black hole's gravity and matter cannot normally fall inwards any more rapidly. That maximum is referred to as the Eddington rate.
Scientists think that black holes growing more slowly than the Eddington rate need to be born with masses of about 10,000 Suns or more so they can reach a billion solar masses within a billion years after the big bang — as has been observed in RACS J0320-35. A black hole with such a high birth mass could directly result from an exotic process: the collapse of a huge cloud of dense gas containing unusually low amounts of elements heavier than helium, conditions that may be extremely rare.
If RACS J0320-35 is indeed growing at a high rate — estimated at 2.4 times the Eddington limit — and has done so for a sustained amount of time, its black hole could have started out in a more conventional way, with a mass less than a hundred Suns, caused by the implosion of a massive star.
To figure out how fast this black hole is growing (between 300 and 3,000 Suns per year), the researchers compared computer models with the X-ray signature, or spectrum, from Chandra, which gives the amounts of X-rays at different energies. They found the Chandra spectrum closely matched what they expected from models of a black hole growing faster than the Eddington rate. Data from optical and infrared light also supports the interpretation that this black hole is packing on weight faster than the Eddington limit allows.
Another scientific mystery addressed by this result concerns the cause of jets of particles that move away from some black holes at close to the speed of light that the team detected in RACS J0320-35. Jets like this are rare for quasars, which may mean that the rapid rate of growth of the black hole is somehow contributing to the creation of these jets.
A paper describing these results has been accepted for publication i. n The Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available he,brre. The first author of the study is Luca Ighina of the Center for . Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass. A ,hr full list of authors can be found in the paper.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
A quasar is a black hole with large amounts of material in its gravitational grasp, contained in a surrounding disk. These disks generate huge amounts of light, making quasars like RACS J0320-35 visible at enormous distances. The illustration shows this captured material as the red, orange and yellow swirls around the black sphere that represents the black hole. It also shows a jet of energetic particles blasting away from the black hole to the lower right.
After discovering this quasar with other telescopes in 2023, a team of researchers then used Chandra to examine how fast RACS J0320-35 is pulling matter onto the black hole’s surface and, as a result, growing. The Chandra data are shown in the inset in purple.
When matter is pulled toward a black hole it is heated and produces intense radiation over a broad spectrum, including X-rays and optical light. This radiation creates pressure on the infalling material. When the rate of infalling matter reaches a critical value, the radiation pressure balances the black hole's gravity and matter cannot normally fall inwards any more rapidly. That maximum is referred to as the Eddington rate.
Scientists think that black holes growing more slowly than the Eddington rate need to be born with masses of about 10,000 Suns or more so they can reach a billion solar masses within a billion years after the big bang — as has been observed in RACS J0320-35. A black hole with such a high birth mass could directly result from an exotic process: the collapse of a huge cloud of dense gas containing unusually low amounts of elements heavier than helium, conditions that may be extremely rare.
If RACS J0320-35 is indeed growing at a high rate — estimated at 2.4 times the Eddington limit — and has done so for a sustained amount of time, its black hole could have started out in a more conventional way, with a mass less than a hundred Suns, caused by the implosion of a massive star.
To figure out how fast this black hole is growing (between 300 and 3,000 Suns per year), the researchers compared computer models with the X-ray signature, or spectrum, from Chandra, which gives the amounts of X-rays at different energies. They found the Chandra spectrum closely matched what they expected from models of a black hole growing faster than the Eddington rate. Data from optical and infrared light also supports the interpretation that this black hole is packing on weight faster than the Eddington limit allows.
Another scientific mystery addressed by this result concerns the cause of jets of particles that move away from some black holes at close to the speed of light that the team detected in RACS J0320-35. Jets like this are rare for quasars, which may mean that the rapid rate of growth of the black hole is somehow contributing to the creation of these jets.
A paper describing these results has been accepted for publication i. n The Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available he,brre. The first author of the study is Luca Ighina of the Center for . Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass. A ,hr full list of authors can be found in the paper.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
Visual Description:
This release features a quasar located 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, presented as an artist’s illustration and an X-ray image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
In the artist's illustration, the quasar, RACS J0320-35, sits at our upper left, filling the left side of the image. It resembles a spiraling, motion-blurred disk of orange, red, and yellow streaks. At the center of the disk, surrounded by a glowing, sparking, brilliant yellow light, is a black egg shape. This is a black hole, one of the fastest-growing black holes ever detected. The black hole is also shown in a small Chandra X-ray image inset at our upper right. In that depiction, the black hole appears as a white dot with an outer ring of neon purple.
The artist's illustration also highlights a jet of particles blasting away from the black hole at the center of the quasar. The streaked silver beam starts at the core of the distant quasar, near our upper left, and shoots down toward our lower right. The blurry beam of energetic particles appears to widen as it draws closer and exits the image.
In the artist's illustration, the quasar, RACS J0320-35, sits at our upper left, filling the left side of the image. It resembles a spiraling, motion-blurred disk of orange, red, and yellow streaks. At the center of the disk, surrounded by a glowing, sparking, brilliant yellow light, is a black egg shape. This is a black hole, one of the fastest-growing black holes ever detected. The black hole is also shown in a small Chandra X-ray image inset at our upper right. In that depiction, the black hole appears as a white dot with an outer ring of neon purple.
The artist's illustration also highlights a jet of particles blasting away from the black hole at the center of the quasar. The streaked silver beam starts at the core of the distant quasar, near our upper left, and shoots down toward our lower right. The blurry beam of energetic particles appears to widen as it draws closer and exits the image.
Fast Facts for RACS J0320-35:
Scale: Image is about 21 arcsec (390,000 light-years) across.
Category: Quasars & Active Galaxies, Black Holes
Coordinates (J2000): RA 03h 20m 21.4s | Dec -35° 21´ 04.13"
Constellation: Fornax
Observation Dates: 3 observations from Jul 2023-Dec 2023
Observation Time: 16 hours 45 minutes
Obs. ID: 26709, 27112, 29162
Instrument: ACIS
References: Ighina, L. et al., 2025, ApJ, Accepted;
Color Code: X-ray: purple
Distance Estimate: About 12.8 billion light-years from Earth (z=6.13)
