The most distant active supermassive black hole to date has been identified with the help of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Supermassive black holes are black holes with a mass above 100,000 solar masses. The black hole discovered now is less massive than others which were discovered in the early universe before. It is in the galaxy CEERS 1019, existed just over 570 million years after the big bang. The galaxy was previously identified as EGSY8p7.
The more interesting fact is that the black hole weighs in at just 9 million solar masses. That is, they are only 9 million times heavier than sun. This is very less compared to other black holes that existed in the early universe which weigh in at over 1 billion solar masses. The huge mass of other black holes made them brighter and easier to detect.
The existence of lower-mass black holes in the early universe were known to researchers. But detecting it is a first. Since this black hole existed much earlier, finding an explanation on how it formed soon after the universe began is a difficult task.
The black hole detected is similar to the one at the center of Milky Way galaxy, which is 4.6 million times the mass of the sun.
The Details
The data collected by JWST reveals that CEERS 1019 is actively producing new stars. This is assumed to be the result of a merger with another galaxy that is feeding the activity in CEERS 1019’s black hole. The space telescope collected spectral data on the galaxy, the electromagnetic signatures that reveal the chemical composition, mass and other properties of the galaxy.
The discovery was part of Webb’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, led by Steven Finkelstein of the University of Texas at Austin. JWST’s highly detailed near- and mid-infrared images and data known as spectra are all combined to make the discoveries. Two more less massive black holes that existed 1 billion years and 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang were also discovered. Each weigh in at around 10 million solar masses. These two black holes are at the core of the galaxies CEERS 746 and CEERS 2782. In addition to these, 11 galaxies that existed when the universe was 470 to 675 million years old were identified.
Currently, data regarding more distant black holes identified by JWST is being reviewed. So, the most distant black hole detected may not be the one within CEERS 1019 after few weeks.
