Record-breaking supermassive Black Hole discovered during Cosmic Dawn

WEB DESK: Scientists have identified an exceptionally early supermassive black hole during the Cosmic Dawn, setting a record for the earliest black hole ever observed.

According to Science Alert, situated within a galaxy named UHZ1, this colossal entity has been detected just 470 million years following the Big Bang, a period when the universe was in its infancy. What makes this finding even more remarkable is that this black hole is at a developmental stage never before witnessed, closely matching the mass of the galaxy forming around it.

The remarkable revelation was made possible by a combination of the Chandra X-ray observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the application of a gravitational lens—a peculiar feature resulting from the warping of space-time due to the gravitational pull of massive objects such as galaxy clusters.

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The reports indicate that UHZ1, located beyond the Abell 2744 galaxy cluster about 3.5 billion light years away, had its light magnified fourfold by the gravitational lens, enabling the JWST to capture the galaxy’s light and Chandra to observe the X-radiation emanating from the swirling gas around the supermassive black hole at its core.

The collaborative efforts of astrophysicist Akos Bogdan and his team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) resulted in this significant finding.

It provides crucial evidence supporting the formation of supermassive black holes through the direct gravitational collapse of immense gas clouds, subsequently growing in size over time. This phenomenon underscores that black holes born with more mass have a substantial head start in their development.

Supermassive black holes, known for their enormous size, have posed questions about their origins and growth. The recent discovery suggests that in the early Universe, there are more such black holes than previously anticipated, and they are too massive to have evolved from objects as small as stars shortly after the Big Bang.

However, the observation of the Cosmic Dawn, which spans the initial billion years following the Big Bang, is a formidable task due to the immense distances involved, the dimness of the light from those remote regions, and its pronounced redshift caused by the expanding space-time.

The JWST, being the most powerful space telescope ever constructed, can observe the universe in this redshifted light. Nevertheless, the difficulty of spotting these early cosmic phenomena remains a considerable challenge.

This groundbreaking research signifies the first detection of an “Outsize Black Hole” and compelling evidence for the formation of some supermassive black holes from massive gas clouds.

It provides insights into a phase where a supermassive black hole weighs roughly as much as the stars within its host galaxy. This finding strongly suggests that these black holes formed through direct gravitational collapse, rather than the slower process of accretion.

Although the slow accretion model may still apply to some supermassive black holes, the cumulative evidence indicates that, at least in the early Universe, direct collapse is the preferred method for creating such enormous black holes.

The scientific community remains eager to explore further revelations from the early Universe using the capabilities of the JWST, as it holds the promise of unveiling more captivating surprises from the dawn of time.

This research has been accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy and is also available on the preprint server arXiv.