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In a breakthrough, astronomers have discovered the oldest supermassive black hole ever to be seen. The extraordinary discovery dates back to the early days of the universe and powers the most distant quasar yet known.
The mammoth black hole weighs in with a mass equivalent to the combined mass of 1.6 billion suns. It dates back to 670 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only five percent of its current age.
The black hole is at the heart of the first quasar ever discovered. Quasars are the incredibly bright core of an active galaxy. Their powerful glow is created by the extraordinary amounts of energy released by the gas falling towards the supermassive black hole at their center.
The quasar is 13.03 billion light years from Earth, making it the most distant quasar discovered to date. Distant quasars are essential to understanding the nature of the early universe. They offer information on the formation of black holes and massive galaxies during this period.
The object is the first of its kind to show evidence of an exiting wind of superheated gas escaping from the vicinity of the black hole at one-fifth the speed of light.
Astronomers have also observed intense star-forming activity in the galaxy where the quasar is located.
The extraordinary size of the black hole and the fact that it dates back so early in the universe challenges current scientific understanding of the formation of these cosmic giants.
Supermassive black holes are thought to develop from smaller, seed black holes that devour matter. Researchers at the University of Arizona calculated that even if the black hole seed formed right after the first stars in the universe and grew as fast as possible, it would have required a starting mass of at least 10,000 suns.
This is simply too fast for current models of black hole formation, i.e. by the collapse of massive stars.
“This is the first evidence of how a supermassive black hole affects its host galaxy around it,” said senior newspaper author Feige Wang.
“From observations of less distant galaxies, we know it has to happen, but we’ve never seen it happen so early in the universe.
Researchers hope to learn more about the quasar and the black hole with future observations, particularly with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is expected to launch later this year.
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