S5 0014+81 is a distant, compact, hyperluminous, broad-absorption line quasar or blazar located near the high declination region of the constellation Cepheus, near the North Equatorial Pole. The object is a blazar, in fact an FSRQ (Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar) quasar, the most energetic subclass of objects known as active galactic nuclei, produced by the rapid accretion of matter by a central supermassive black hole, changing the gravitational energy to light energy that can be visible in cosmic distances.
In the case of S5 0014+81 it
is one of the most luminous quasars known, with a total luminosity of over 1041
watts, equal to an absolute bolometric magnitude of -31.5.
If the quasar were at a
distance of 280 light-years from Earth, it would give as much energy per square
meter as the Sun despite being 18 million times more distant. The quasar's
luminosity is therefore about 3 x 1014 (300 trillion) times the Sun, or over
25,000 times as luminous as all the 100 to 400 billion stars of the Milky Way
Galaxy combined, making it one of the most powerful objects in the universe.
However, because of its huge
distance of 12.1 billion light-years it can only be studied by spectroscopy.
The central black hole of the quasar devours an extremely huge amount of
matter, equivalent to 4,000 solar masses of material every year.
The quasar is also a very
strong source of radiation, from gamma-rays and X-rays down to radio waves. The
quasar is located at a distance where the observed redshift of quasars and
stars are extremely similar, making the two objects difficult to distinguish
using the standard spectroscopic redshift and the photometric redshift
determination, and hence must be treated by other special techniques to
successfully determine the nature of the object.
The quasar's designation,
S5, is from the Fifth Survey of Strong Radio Sources, 0014+81 was its
coordinates in epoch B1950.0. It also has the other designation 6C B0014+8120
from the Sixth Cambridge Survey of radio sources by Cambridge University.
The host galaxy of S5
0014+81 is a giant elliptical starburst galaxy, with the apparent magnitude of
24. The host galaxy S5 0014+81
is an FSRQ blazar, a giant elliptical galaxy that hosts a supermassive black
hole in its center, which may be responsible for the intense activity of this
blazar.
In 2009, a team of
astronomers using the Swift Spacecraft used the luminosity output of S5 0014+81
to measure the mass of the central black hole. To their surprise, they found
out that the central black hole of S5 0014+81 is actually 10,000 times more
massive than the black hole at the center of our galaxy, or equivalent to 40
billion solar masses.
This makes it one of the
most massive black holes ever discovered, more than six times the value of the
black hole of Messier 87, which was thought to be the largest black hole for
almost 60 years, and was coined to be an "ultramassive" black hole.
The Schwarzschild radius of
this black hole is 118.35 billion kilometers. So, this black hole has an
external horizon showing a diameter of 236.7 billion kilometers, 1,600
astronomical units, or 37.4 times the diameter of Pluto's orbit, and shows a
mass equivalent to four Large Magellanic Clouds.
What is even more astounding
is that the monstrous black hole exists so early in the universe, at only 1.6
billion years after the Big Bang. This suggests that supermassive black holes
grow up very quickly.
However, there are some
cautions about the study. First, the method used was actually an indirect
method of calculation, and not Keplerian orbital estimation; the latter being a
more precise estimate. It is unlikely for a quasar as luminous as S5 0014+81,
which will just outshine the stars within its vicinity, thereby making
estimates very inaccurate. Second, the spectra used is actually a long spectra,
not accounting for the observed parameters.
Third, the quasar is surrounded
by a large accretion disc, a few parsecs in size, and it shines at 40% of its
Eddington luminosity.
The maximum luminosity
through which radiation pressure is strong enough to blow up the disc away from
the gravitational influence of the central black hole, so the observed
characteristics are unknown due to intervening dust and gases. However, the
possibility of an ultramassive black hole has not been ruled out entirely,
since only a black hole of that mass can account for the observed power output
of the quasar.
Evolution models based on
the mass of S5 0014+81's supermassive black hole predict that it will live for
roughly 1.342×1099 years (near the end of the Black Hole Era of the Universe,
when it is more than 1088 times its current age), before it dissipates by the
Hawking radiation. However, it is undergoing accretion, so it may take longer
than the stated time for it to dissipate.