Has the James Webb Space Telescope discovered a 'missing' supermassive black hole? (video)
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Scientists have long believed that monster-sized supermassive black holes lurk at the heart of all large galaxies. That means that the failure to detect such a cosmic titan at the heart of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, officially known as Messier 83 (M83), has been a frustrating conundrum.
Now, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers may have cracked this puzzle, finding the first evidence of a supermassive black hole at the heart of M83, also known as NGC 5236, a spiral galaxy located around 15 million light-years away.
"The JWST is revolutionizing our understanding of galaxies," team member Linda Smith of the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a statement. "For years, astronomers have searched for a black hole in M83 without success. Now, we finally have a compelling clue that suggests one may be present."
Supermassive black holes have masses millions or even billions of times that of the sun. Situated at the hearts of distant galaxies, these black holes are pretty conspicuous when they are actively feeding and surrounded by gas and dust that they heat, causing them to glow brightly.
These regions, known as "active galactic nuclei" or "AGNs," can often be seen even in galaxies that are otherwise too distant and too faint to be detected.
This has led scientists to speculate that either the supermassive black hole at the heart of M83 is dormant (not actively feeding on matter), or that the AGN it powers is hidden by a thick shroud of dust.
That second explanation is favored by new data from the JWST which takes full advantage of the $10 billion space telescope's unprecedented sensitivity and spatial resolution.
Clumps of highly ionized gas were the "smoking gun" hinting at the presence of an obscured AGN at the heart of M83.
"Our discovery of highly ionized neon emission in the nucleus of M83 was unexpected," team leader Svea Hernandez, a European Space Agency (ESA) scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said. "These signatures require large amounts of energy to be produced, more than what normal stars can generate.
"This strongly suggests the presence of an AGN that has been elusive until now."
Even the explosive death of massive stars in supernovas couldn't provide enough energy to create the signature spotted by the JWST. That makes an AGN the most likely suspect. But, not the only suspect.
The team behind this discovery now needs to eliminate other possible candidates for the creation of highly ionized neon gas, such as shockwaves travelling through the gases that exists between stars, the "interstellar medium."
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Astronomers will now follow up the investigation of M83 with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and the Very Large Telescope (VLT). In the meantime, this research proves how effective the JWST is at discovering hitherto unseen structures in the cosmos.
"This discovery showcases how the JWST is making unexpected breakthroughs," Smith concluded, "Astronomers thought they had ruled out an AGN in M83, but now we have fresh evidence that challenges past assumptions and opens new avenues for exploration."
The team's research was published on Thursday (April 17) in The Astrophysical Journal.
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Therefore, the cosmological constant is proportional to the square of the angular velocity of the universe."But, how could this explain the DESI observations that seem to indicate that dark energy is getting weaker? "Because the angular momentum of the universe is conserved, it decreases as the universe expands," Poplawski said. "Consequently, the cosmological constant, which is the simplest explanation of dark energy, should also decrease with time. This result is consistent with recent observations by DESI." 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When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. DENVER—Psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, can alleviate depression for at least five years after a single dose, a new study finds. The research, presented June 18 at the Psychedelic Science 2025 conference in Denver, focused on patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), which is often called clinical depression. The serious mood disorder causes a persistent feeling of sadness and a loss of interest or pleasure in activities that were once enjoyable. The most common treatments for MDD include talk therapy and medications such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and both can take a long time to show any benefits. When early studies hinted at psilocybin's potential as an antidepressant, a team of researchers undertook the first-ever randomized clinical trial to explore the use of the psychedelic for treating severe depression. The trial included 24 patients, half of whom received psilocybin at the very start of the trial and half of whom received the same dose eight weeks later—the "waitlist" group. Each patient also received 11 hours of psychotherapy. Even in that short time frame, "there was a significant reduction in depression in the immediate-treatment group compared to those on the waitlist," study co-author Alan Davis, director of the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education at The Ohio State University, told Live Science. Once all of the patients had completed the four-week study, the psilocybin appeared to be four times more effective than traditional antidepressant medications, based on previous research data. One month after the treatment, 17 patients had relieved symptoms, including 14 who were in full remission from depression. Patients also responded much faster to psilocybin than is typical for conventional antidepressants. But do these benefits of psilocybin last? Related: Magic mushrooms temporarily 'dissolve' brain network responsible for sense of self Very few long-term studies of psilocybin for depression have been conducted to date, said Dr. Charles Raison, a professor of human ecology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the research. "They are very difficult to do because people drop out," Raison told Live Science in an email. "But also because they go on all sorts of other treatments that obfuscate the degree to which any longer lasting benefits result from the psychedelic or because the participant got therapy or restarted an antidepressant." To investigate whether the benefits for psilocybin lasted and if the patients had experienced any side effects, the researchers contacted the original trial participants several years later to request their enrollment in a follow-up study. Twenty-one patients enrolled, and their clinicians rated any changes in the participants' levels of depression from before the original treatment to the present day. The patients also filled out a series of self-reported, online questionnaires and met up with clinicians to document their ability to engage in everyday tasks, their levels of anxiety and their general mental health. The researchers assumed that the three patients that didn't sign up for the follow up, and the three that didn't complete the questionnaires had not remained in remission. Even so, the researchers found that 67% of the participants who had suffered from depression half a decade earlier remained in remission after a single psychedelic therapy session. These patients also reported less anxiety and less difficulty functioning on a daily basis. In general, the two-thirds of the patients who responded well reported lasting positive changes in their mindsets, emotional health and relationships. "I'm excited by these deeper aspects of their lives that really speaks to the importance of these interventions beyond just reduction of depression," Davis said. RELATED STORIES —Psychedelics rapidly change the brain. Here's how. —Australia clears legal use of MDMA and psilocybin to treat PTSD and depression —'Magic mushroom' treatment for depression inches closer to approval Most of the patients shared that, following the original treatment, they'd engaged in self-reflection and therapy to help understand themselves and navigate life's challenges. Davis hypothesizes that the psychedelic experience catalyzes a deeper therapy process and would like to conduct future studies comparing the relative influences of psilocybin and psychotherapy in alleviating depression. "The biggest caveat of this study is the small sample size, and the fact that the original trial showed larger antidepressant effects than subsequent larger multi-site studies seem to be showing," Raison said. In a multi-site clinical trial with 233 participants, 37% of the 79 who received a single 25 mg dose of psilocybin, coupled with psychotherapy, went into remission from major depression. While these trials report less widespread antidepressant effects, they support the idea that psilocybin can effectively treat depression, Davis said, and he is keen to see how the findings of multi-site trials hold up five years post-treatment.
