International Research Team Discovers Massive Black Holes in Seven Galaxies

 Recently NHK News on-line reported the following:

巨大ブラックホール 7個の銀河の中に発見 国際研究チーム

2025年9月19日 21時47分

ハワイにある「すばる望遠鏡」で見つけた複数の銀河について、宇宙空間にある望遠鏡で詳しく調べたところ、7個の銀河の中に、ちりに覆われた巨大ブラックホールを発見したと、国際研究チームが発表しました。

日本の国立天文台などの国際研究チームは、「すばる望遠鏡」で見つけた、はるか遠くにある11の銀河について、宇宙空間から天体観測を行う「ジェームズ・ウェッブ宇宙望遠鏡」を使って詳しく調べました。

その結果、このうち7個の銀河について、ブラックホールがあることを裏付ける「クェーサー」が放った光を検出したということです。

クェーサーは、宇宙のガスやちりなどがブラックホールに飲み込まれていく際に強烈な光を放つもので、研究チームは、7個の銀河の中に巨大ブラックホールがあることを確認したとしています。

研究チームによりますと、見つかった巨大ブラックホールは、銀河のちりに覆われているため、地上の望遠鏡では、クェーサーからの光を見つけられませんでしたが、宇宙望遠鏡を使うことで、クェーサーからの微弱な赤外線を検出できたということです。

研究チームの1人で、愛媛大学の松岡良樹准教授は「銀河を見つける広い視野をもつ、すばる望遠鏡と、視野は狭いものの極めて高い感度をもつ宇宙望遠鏡の組み合わせが、非常に強力なことを示す成果だ」と話しています。

Translation:

International Research Team Discovers Massive Black Holes in Seven Galaxies

An international research team announced that they discovered massive black holes shrouded in dust in seven of the galaxies discovered by using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, and also after using a telescope in space to closely examine them.

An international research team, including members from Japan's National Astronomical Observatory, used the James Webb Space Telescope which conducted astronomical observations from space, conducted detailed observations of 11 distant galaxies discovered using the Subaru Telescope.

As a result, in seven of these galaxies, light emitted by "quasars" which used to confirm the existence of black holes was detected.

Quasars emitted intense light when cosmic gas and dust were swallowed by a black hole, and the research team confirmed the presence of massive black holes in the seven galaxies.

According to the research team, because the discovered supermassive black holes were obscured by galactic dust, light from the quasar could not be detected with ground-based telescopes, but by using a space-based telescope they were able to detect the faint infrared light from the quasar.

Yoshiki Matsuoka (松岡良樹), Associate Professor at Ehime University and one of the research team, said, " the combination of the Subaru Telescope, which has a wide field of view for finding galaxies, and a space-based telescope, which has a narrow field of view but extremely high sensitivity, shows an achievement that demonstrates something very powerful."

              So, an international research team has discovered massive black holes shrouded in dust in seven of the galaxies discovered by using the land-based Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, and subsequently also using the space-based James Webb Space Telescope to closely examine them. Apparently, it is a great scientific discovery.

Note:

1. A ​quasi-stellar radio source ("quasar") is a very energetic and distant active galactic nucleus. Quasars are extremely luminous and were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light, that were point-like, similar to stars. (Wikipedia)