Astronomers just found the oldest supermassive black hole yet

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13-01-2021, 15:51

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INA – SOURCES

A quasar has been discovered in a dark corner of space over 13.03 billion light-years away, and it contains a supermassive black hole 1.6 billion times more massive than the sun at its heart.

Dubbed J0313-1806, the quasar, as we see it, is from a time when the universe was just 670 million years old, about 5% of its current age.

At such a distance, J0313-1806 becomes the record holder for earliest black hole, dethroning the previous champion, J1342+0928, which was discovered in 2017 and existed when the universe was only 690 million years old.

The discovery, which was announced during the 237th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Tuesday, helps shed light on the environment in the ancient universe.

But, like any good astrophysics story, it leaves researchers with a number of puzzling questions.