The oldest known black hole – a 13.2 billion year old ‘monster’ – has been discovered by scientists.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory spent the past year working together to find and confirm black holes and on Monday, researchers published their findings confirming the belief that supermassive black holes existed at the beginning of the universe.
They believe the newly located black hole formed just 470 million years after the Big Bang and is 10 times more massive than the black hole in the Milky Way.
This annotated image provided by NASA on November 6, 2023 shows a composite view of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope showing an accreting black hole just 470 million years after the big bang. AP
Scientists estimate it weighs between 10 and 100% of the mass of all the stars in its galaxy, according to lead author Akos Bogdan of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
“It’s really early in the universe to be such a giant,” said Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University, who participated in the study. “It’s amazing how this thing has actually been in place with its galaxy since the very beginning of the universe.”
The researchers think the giant black hole was created when a cloud of gas collapsed in a galaxy adjacent to a galaxy with stars.
The galaxies merge into one and the black hole takes over.
And the black hole is still growing with blindingly bright gas, Natarajan said.
He believes more and potentially even older black holes are still out there.
“We expect a new window to open in the universe, and I think this is the first crack,” he said.
With Postal wire
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
