Researchers have discovered the oldest known black hole to date, a 13,2 billion-year-old "colossus" with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
After a year of collaboration to search for and confirm the existence of this cosmic object, the results of the study were published on Monday, supporting the theory that supermassive black holes have existed since the beginning of the universe.
The newly identified black hole would have formed just 470 million years after the Big Bang and is 10 times the size of the Milky Way. Its mass is estimated to be between 10 and 100 percent of the total mass of stars in its galaxy, according to the study's lead author, Akos Bogdan of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University, who participated in the study, said it was astonishing to see "such a colossus forming so early in the universe." Researchers believe that the supergiant black hole formed as a result of the collapse of gas clouds in a neighboring galaxy with another galaxy that contained stars. The two galaxies merged and the black hole took over.
Currently, the black hole continues to grow, absorbing glowing gas, Natarajan noted. It assumes that there are other, perhaps even older, black holes that have yet to be discovered.
"We expect a new window to open into the universe, and I think this is just the beginning," she added, suggesting that this discovery could be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of our understanding of the early universe.
