Oldest Black Hole tagged posts

Astronomers Detect Oldest Black Hole ever observed

The GN-z11 galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

Researchers have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the dawn of the universe, and found that it is ‘eating’ its host galaxy to death.

The international team, led by the University of Cambridge, used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect the black hole, which dates from 400 million years after the big bang, more than 13 billion years ago. The results, which lead author Professor Roberto Maiolino says are “a giant leap forward,” are reported in the journal Nature.

That this surprisingly massive black hole — a few million times the mass of our Sun — even exists so early in the universe challenges our assumptions about how black holes form and grow...

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Oldest Black Hole Discovered Dating Back to 470 million years after the Big Bang

Oldest black hole discovered dating back to 470 million years after the Big Bang
This annotated image provided by NASA on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023, shows a composite view of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope indicating a growing black hole just 470 million years after the big bang. It is the oldest black hole yet discovered. Credit: NASA via AP

Scientists have discovered the oldest black hole yet, a cosmic beast formed a mere 470 million years after the Big Bang. The findings, published Monday, confirm what until now were theories that supermassive black holes existed at the dawn of the universe. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory teamed up over the past year to make the observations.

Given the universe is 13.7 billion years old, that puts the age of this black hole at 13.2 billion years.

Even...

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