New images of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4696 captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope unveil gas filaments delivering material to a rotating disk around a supermassive black hole with an impressive 800 light-year diameter. This discovery sheds light on a long-standing mystery of how these immense galaxies continue to evolve.
This Hubble image showcases the elliptical galaxy NGC 4696. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Fabian.
At the core of nearly every large galaxy lies a supermassive black hole, often millions to billions of times more massive than the Sun.
When these black holes actively consume surrounding material, they ignite like cosmic engines, emitting powerful jets of energy. This activity can dismantle entire galaxies and hinder the formation of new stars, ultimately shaping the evolution of galaxies over time. These active black holes are referred to as active galactic nuclei (AGN).
If the AGN jet heats the nearby gas, it should theoretically limit the black hole’s access to food. This begs the question: how does it continue to grow?
A leading theory suggests that the heated gas cools and condenses into thin streamers known as filaments, which then move toward the galaxy’s center in a self-regulating manner.
“Webb’s observations have provided us with thousands of new facts and measurements, and there’s much to analyze,” stated Megan Donahue, a professor at Michigan State University.
“We are collaborating to unravel astrophysical mysteries about the fueling process of black holes and their interactions with host galaxies.”
Professor Donahue and her team directed the Webb telescope towards NGC 4696, a massive elliptical galaxy located approximately 116 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus.
With a diameter of about 30,000 light-years, it stands as the largest galaxy in the Centauri cluster, which comprises hundreds of galaxies.
Utilizing nearly eight hours of observation with Webb’s NIRSpec instrument, astronomers crafted a detailed map of gas movements within the black hole’s gravitational influence. The resolution was sharp enough to reveal features spanning approximately 30 light-years within a galaxy that stretches for hundreds of thousands of light-years.
These observations indicated that the previously identified S-shaped vortex is actually a rotating disk of gas encircling a supermassive black hole, with material swirling at speeds of up to 600 kilometers per second.
Crucially, the disk appears to be physically connected to one of the large filament streams extending outward into the galaxy.
These observations confirmed that gas flows along the filament into a disk that sustains the supermassive black hole.
This groundbreaking research will also enhance scientists’ understanding of the complete feeding cycle of supermassive black holes.
Jets emitted by the black hole inject energy into the surrounding gas. Over time, this gas cools and becomes unstable, collapsing into long filaments that can be several hundred light-years wide or extend thousands of light-years in length.
Magnetic forces decelerate the gas’s rotation as it descends, guiding it inward to accumulate in a rotating disk around the black hole. This disk feeds the black hole, which in turn shoots jets, initiating the cycle anew.
To validate this model, researchers conducted advanced computer simulations of the system.
The simulated gas behavior closely matched observations collected by Webb, providing robust independent validation of the proposed framework.
“Our calculations suggest that magnetic fields assist in channeling cold gas to feed the universe’s largest black holes, and observing this in Webb’s images was unexpected,” remarked Dr. Mark Voight from Michigan State University.
These findings will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letter.
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Julie Hlavacek-Lalonde et al. 2026. JWST reveals how black holes are fed: kiloparsec-scale multiphase filaments sustain a subkiloparsec perinuclear disk. APJL in press. arXiv: 2606.06620
Source: www.sci.news
