Most Distant Active Supermassive Black Hole to Date Detected | Webb Telescope
Galaxy CEERS 1019 is notable for how long ago it existed, but also how relatively little its black hole weighs. This black hole clocks in at about 9 million solar masses, far less than other black holes that also existed in the early universe and were detected by other telescopes. Those behemoths typically contain more than 1 billion times the mass of the Sun—and they are easier to detect because they are much brighter. (They are actively “eating” matter, which lights up as it swirls toward the black hole.) The black hole within CEERS 1019 is more similar to the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which is 4.6 million times the mass of the Sun. This black hole is also not as bright as the more massive behemoths previously detected. Though smaller, this black hole existed so much earlier that it is still difficult to explain how it formed so soon after the universe began. Researchers have long known that smaller black holes must have existed earlier in the universe, but it was not until Webb began observing that they were able to make definitive detections.
These are only the first groundbreaking findings from the CEERS survey. “Until now, research about objects in the early universe was largely theoretical,” Finkelstein said. “With Webb, not only can we see black holes and galaxies at extreme distances, we can now start to accurately measure them. That’s the tremendous power of this telescope.”
The James Webb Space Telescope is an international program led by NASA with its partners, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin)
Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
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