Who's Rohan Naidu, Indian astronomer behind 'black hole star' discovery?
What's the story
Rohan Naidu, a Hyderabad-born astronomer and MIT's Pappalardo Fellow, has been instrumental in the discovery of a possible "black hole star." The object, dubbed MoM-BH-1*, was identified using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It looks like a star but is thought to be powered by a central black hole. The finding could explain the mysterious "little red dots" seen in the early universe.
Discovery details
MoM-BH-1* is about as big as our solar system
The object MoM-BH-1* is about as big as our solar system but 100 billion times brighter than an ordinary star.
The researchers think its incredible energy might come from a central black hole surrounded by a massive envelope of dense hydrogen.
The study, published in Nature, could also explain the mysterious population of "little red dots" seen by JWST in the early universe.
Background
Naidu's journey from Hyderabad to MIT
Naidu, who grew up in Hyderabad, dropped out of engineering school at 18 and joined Yale-NUS College's founding class.
He developed an interest in astronomy while studying blazars with Professor Charles Bailyn in the Andes Mountains of Chile.
After earning his PhD at Harvard under Professor Charlie Conroy, Naidu focused on galaxies formed soon after the Big Bang, including some of the most distant objects observed with JWST.
Object analysis
What is MoM-BH-1*
Naidu led the study of MoM-BH-1*, an extremely bright red object seen when the universe was just a few hundred million years old.
Initially thought to be a distant, unusually bright galaxy, its light contained several features that made researchers question this interpretation.
The most likely explanation is a central black hole surrounded by a vast envelope of gas, Naidu said.
Source characteristics
A new class of objects
Discovered through the Mirage or Miracle (MoM) survey, MoM-BH-1* was both unusually red and exceptionally bright. It didn't behave like a typical star or galaxy.
Its brightness, color, and spectral characteristics led researchers to consider it could be a different type of source altogether.
Simulations suggest that MoM-BH-1* could be a black hole surrounded by an extremely dense cloud of hydrogen.
Energy output
100,000 times the mass of the Sun
The central black hole in MoM-BH-1* is estimated to be about 100,000 times the mass of the Sun, with its gas envelope extending to about the size of our solar system.
The object's extraordinary brightness, 100 billion times brighter than an ordinary star, cannot be explained by nuclear fusion, which powers stars like our Sun.
An actively feeding black hole can release huge amounts of energy as it accretes surrounding matter.