Black holes cannot be observed directly, but through other intermediate measures.
Astronomers have discovered the oldest black hole ever, dating back more than 13 billion years, meaning at the dawn of the universe.
Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope show that the black hole is located at the center of a galaxy called GN-z11, about 440 million years after the Big Bang event that created the universe.
With a mass about one solar mass, the black hole is surprisingly massive for a young black hole. Astronomers wonder how it could have grown so rapidly in such a short time.
Professor Roberto Maiolino, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge (UK), said "the surprising thing is that it is so huge. It is an unexpected discovery".
Published on the website Arxiv , the observations from the James Webb telescope did not result in a direct image. The reason is that black holes are invisible objects and no light can escape them.
Location of galaxy GN-z11
However, astronomers recognize signs of a black hole's presence, such as accretion disks and billowing halos of gas and dust surrounding the cosmos' giant "sinkholes."
Experts say the universe's first black holes could help solve long-standing puzzles about the giants at the center of galaxies, such as the Milky Way, which are billions of times more massive than the sun.
Until recently, scientists thought black holes grew at a steady rate, swallowing stars and other objects. They estimated that it took about 14 billion years for black holes to grow into supermassive black holes.
However, the latest observations of the galaxy GN-z11 suggest that supermassive black holes may have been massive at birth, or must have grown particularly rapidly soon after their formation.
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