A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away …

The oldest and largest “supermassive” black hole and quasar have been discovered in the universe, astronomers said Tuesday.

The black hole and the quasar, more than 13 billion years old, are the oldest in terms of vision to date, giving astronomers a glimpse into the formation of massive galaxies in the early universe.

Quasars are incredibly massive and luminous celestial bodies located in the middle of galaxies. These are the most distant celestial bodies known and are essential for understanding the early universe.

The discovery of the quasar and the newly discovered black hole dates back 670 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only 5% of its current age, astronomers said.

The discovery, announced Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society’s annual meeting, helps shed light on the environment in the ancient universe, CNET said.

“Outermost quasars are essential to understanding how the first black holes formed,” said Xiaohui Fan, an astronomer at the University of Arizona and co-author of a new study on the discovery. The study was accepted for publication in the journal. Letters from the Astrophysical Journal.

The quasar is 1,000 times brighter than our entire Milky Way galaxy, and it’s powered by the supermassive black hole, which weighs more than 1.6 billion times the mass of our sun.

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The newly discovered quasar offers a rare glimpse into the life of galaxies at the dawn of the universe, as many of the galaxy-forming processes that have since slowed or stopped in galaxies that have been around longer are in full swing. the University of Arizona said in a statement.

Quasars are believed to be caused by supermassive black holes that devour surrounding matter, such as gas or even entire stars, resulting in a vortex of extremely hot material known as an accretion disk that spins around the hole. black.

“This is the first evidence of how a supermassive black hole affects the host galaxy around it,” said lead author Vij Wang of the University of Arizona. “From observations of less distant galaxies, we know it should happen, but we didn’t see it very early in the universe.”

The observations that led to the discovery were made using various observatories around the world, many of them in Hawaii.

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