A supermassive black hole with a mass 10 million times that of the Sun has revealed an image from over 13.2 billion years ago, showcasing it devouring the “dawn” of the universe.
According to Science Alert, analysis of observations from the James Webb Space Telescope continues to uncover a member of the “monster world” during the cosmic dawn. This is the oldest supermassive black hole known to humanity, formed just 570 million years after the Big Bang that birthed the universe.
Graphic depiction of a glowing supermassive black hole – (Image: TECHNOPIXEL).
The James Webb Space Telescope, primarily developed and operated by NASA with support from ESA and CSA (the European and Canadian space agencies), is the most powerful space telescope in the world, capable of capturing “x-ray vision” images from the early universe.
The recently discovered object is located within one of the earliest galaxies ever identified, CEER_1019 (formerly EGSY8p7).
This supermassive black hole and its host galaxy are more than 13.2 billion light-years away from us, meaning that the light from it has taken that much time to reach the lens of James Webb, which orbits Earth.
Thus, the image scientists see of this monster is a snapshot from 13.2 billion years ago, providing insight into the early universe and how early black holes could grow so large and quickly.
In a study recently published online on arXiv and awaiting peer review for official publication in The Astrophysical Journal, astrophysicist Rebecca Larson from the University of Texas at Austin confirms that this black hole is growing.
It is voraciously consuming limited material from the early universe it belongs to, creating an unusually wide emission point, although it still reflects the Lyman-alpha emission commonly associated with the ionization of neutral hydrogen during star formation, it is not indicative of star formation.
This peculiar supermassive black hole is identified as not the largest but the most ancient. It and its host galaxy may represent a transitional step between the oldest known objects and the giant galaxies and black holes that emerged hundreds of millions of years later.
“What we found may be an ancestor or something that developed into extremely massive quasars,” Dr. Larson stated. Quasars are “supermassive black holes” that are often consuming material intensely.
Researchers remain hopeful that James Webb data will continue to reveal more distant, ancient phenomena to understand the galaxies and black holes that existed before this “intermediate” object, shedding light on how the universe began.
