NASA’s telescopes, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope, have collaborated to make a groundbreaking discovery: the most distant black hole ever detected in X-rays. This discovery marks a pivotal moment in our understanding of how supermassive black holes form in the early universe.
Located 470 million years after the Big Bang, the black hole resides in a galaxy called UHZ1, which is situated about 13.2 billion light-years away from Earth. This galaxy is hidden behind the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, and the light from UHZ1 has been magnified by a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, which helped astronomers detect its faint signal. By combining the data from Chandra and Webb, researchers were able to observe a growing supermassive black hole, which is believed to be at a critical stage of its formation.
What makes this discovery so exciting is that the black hole's mass appears to be comparable to that of its host galaxy—an indication of the rapid growth of some of the first supermassive black holes in the universe. This finding challenges our previous models and offers new insights into the early stages of black hole formation. The use of both the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope was crucial for this breakthrough, as Webb identified the distant galaxy, while Chandra pinpointed the black hole using X-ray emissions, a key sign of its activity.
This research, published in Nature Astronomy, not only expands our knowledge of black hole formation but also provides a deeper look at the nature of the early universe. To explore the study in more detail, you can read the full article on NASA's website https://www.nasa.gov/
