The James Webb Space Telescope has made another amazing discovery. The telescope provides insight into the past of the universe and has revealed the oldest known supermassive black hole. The black hole has also impressed scientists, though they hope it won’t remain the record holder in its class for long.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have discovered a supermassive black hole with a mass 10 million times greater than that of the Sun. In addition, the voracious animal continues to grow to this day, while devouring the substances that approach it. The black hole, which was created just 570 million years after the universe began, is the largest black hole still growing.
The black hole has been found in one of the oldest galaxies yet discovered, now named CEERS_1019, he writes. ScienceAlert. The discovery could start scientists on their way to an answer as to how such large black holes formed so early in the universe. Research leader Rebecca Larson originally studied the galaxy in relation to early star formation. According to him, the universe was enveloped in a hydrogen nebula in its infancy, which prevented the propagation of light. For this reason, light can only propagate after hydrogen atoms have been ionized.
This age of ionization is not fully understood by science, all that can be known is that it probably occurred in about the first billion years. Therefore, very bright galaxies like CEERS_1019 prove to be excellent subjects for studying the early universe.
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The James Webb Space Telescope has made a big change in space research, as compared to its predecessor, Hubble, it can see more thanks to its more advanced instruments. After the discovery of the galaxy in 2015, it became clear that the space telescope should take a closer look, as it was the first galaxy discovered at that time. Larson was impressed by the detail of the images captured by the space telescope. However, it wasn’t long before he noticed something strange. The galaxy emitted two types of light at the same time: light from star formation and light from an active galactic core. Having both of them at the same time in such an early galaxy was completely unexpected.
The discovered black hole existed 13.2 billion years ago and is still growing. Although this is the oldest supermassive black hole ever discovered, much larger black holes have been discovered and not much smaller ones. The question remains how black holes got so big. According to the researchers, what they found could be a transition between early and later galaxies. On the other hand, this black hole may not be suitable for younger massive quasars.
According to scientists, the black hole may be a remnant of the collapse of one of the first stars, which were much larger than the ones we see today. Unanswered questions remain. However, this would certainly not be the last huge find, as this is also the result of one hour of observation.
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