Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered the oldest black hole ever detected—and declared a new era in astronomy.

It was found at the center of GN-z11, a galaxy first discovered in 2017, about 13.4 billion light-years away from our Milky Way galaxy—but about 100 times smaller. That means it exists just 400 million years after the Big Bang, which is thought to have created the universe. However, the black hole looks to be about a billion years old, suggesting problems with theories about how quickly black holes form.

The discovery, announced in a paper published today in the journal Nature, is the result of the sensitivity of JWST, which can see deep into the infrared, detecting old light that has been traveling across deep since the dawn of time.

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. Astronomers believe that the supermassive black holes found at the center of galaxies like the Milky Way grew to their current size over billions of years. But the size of this newly-discovered black hole suggests that they might form in other ways: they might be ‘born big’ or they can eat matter at a rate that’s five times higher than had been thought possible.

An ancient supernova has left a legacy so strange astronomers deemed it worthy of the nickname, despite never seeing the explosion.

Black holes can be difficult to study, so researchers have made a powerful quantum vortex in a tank of superfluid helium that acts as a simulation of a black hole.

By Leah Crane

Astronomers accidentally keyed in the wrong number for a target at Green Bank Observatory and found a mysterious dark galaxy.

The brand new image of supermassive black hole M87 is the most detailed yet.

A study suggests primordial black holes may make planets and moons near us wobble. If measured experimentally, this will provide the first concrete proof such objects exist.

The cosmos may have existed forever, according to a revolutionary model that extends Einstein’s theory of general relativity using quantum correction terms. By taking into consideration dark matter and energy, the model can concurrently address a number of concerns.

New discoveries in Tidal Disruption Events enhance our understanding of supermassive black holes and their properties.

A new study by Hebrew University is a significant breakthrough in understanding Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) involving supermassive black holes. The new simulations, for the first time ever, accurately replicate the entire sequence of a TDE from stellar disruption to the peak luminosity of the resulting flare. This study has unveiled a previously unknown type of shockwave within TDEs, settling a longstanding debate about the energy source of the brightest phases in these events. It confirms that shock dissipation powers the brightest weeks of a TDE flare, opening doors for future studies to utilize TDE observations as a means to measure essential properties of black holes and potentially test Einstein’s predictions in extreme gravitational environments.

The mysteries of supermassive black holes have long captivated astronomers, offering a glimpse into the deepest corners of our universe. Now, a new study led by Dr. Elad Steinberg and Dr. Nicholas C. Stone at the Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, sheds new light on these enigmatic cosmic entities.