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 research, published in the journal Nature, used the 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. That this surprisingly massive black hole—a few million times the mass of our sun—even exists so early in the universe challenges the assumptions about how black holes form and grow, the researchers said. Astronomers believe that the supermassive black holes found at the centre of galaxies like the Milky Way grew to their current size over billions of years. However, the size of this newly-discovered black hole suggests that they might form in other ways. According to standard models, supermassive black holes form from the remnants of dead stars, which collapse and may form a black hole about a hundred times the mass of the Sun. If it grew in an expected way, this newly detected black hole would take about a billion years to grow to its observed size. However, the universe was not yet a billion years old when this black hole was detected. “It’s very early in the universe to see a black hole this massive, so we’ve got to consider other ways they might form,” said lead author Roberto Maiolino, Professor at Cambridge University, UK.
Source: PTI
Oldest black hole is ‘eating’ its host galaxy to death
