Data from Chandra X-ray telescope and James Webb Space Telescopes have revealed a black hole from 470 million years after the Big Bang.
Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart
Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart
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00:00Visit Chandra's Beautiful Universe
00:05UHC-1
00:07Astronomers have discovered the most distant black hole yet seen in X-rays
00:14using two NASA telescopes, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope.
00:22The black hole is at an early stage of growth that had never been witnessed before,
00:26where its mass is similar to that of its host galaxy.
00:30This result may explain how some of the first supermassive black holes in the universe formed.
00:37By combining data from Chandra and Webb,
00:40a team of researchers was able to find the telltale signature of a growing black hole
00:45just 470 million years after the Big Bang.
00:49The extremely distant black hole is located in the galaxy UHC-1
00:54in the direction of the galaxy cluster Abel 2744.
00:58The galaxy cluster is about 3.5 billion light-years from Earth.
01:04However, the web data reveal that UHC-1 is actually much farther away than Abel 2744.
01:11At some 13.2 billion light-years away, astronomers are seeing UHC-1 when the universe was only 3% of its current age.
01:21By using over two weeks of observations from Chandra,
01:25the researchers were able to detect X-ray emission from UHC-1.
01:31This is a telltale signature of a growing supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy.
01:36The X-ray signal is extremely faint, and Chandra was only able to detect it,
01:42even with this long observation,
01:45because of the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing that enhanced the signal by some 400%.
01:50This discovery is important for understanding how some supermassive black holes can reach colossal masses
01:57soon after the Big Bang.
01:59Do they form directly from the collapse of massive clouds of gas,
02:03creating black holes weighing between about 10,000 and 100,000 suns?
02:07Or do they come from explosions of the first stars that create black holes weighing only between about 10 and 100,000 suns?
02:15The researchers suggest this is the best evidence yet obtained
02:19that some black holes formed from massive clouds of gas.
02:23They plan to use this and other results pouring in from Webb
02:26and those combining data from other telescopes, including Chandra,
02:30to help fill out a larger picture of black holes in the early universe.
02:37Mother's in the early universe,
02:49you're a perfect person.
02:50You're a perfect person.
02:52Mother's in the early universe,
02:53you're a perfect person.
02:54By helping the complex remains of a very simple size,
02:57you're a perfect person,
02:58humans can't suffer from whitties or whatnot.
03:01But the sun is only enough that it's outdoorsy.
03:03You're a perfect person.
03:05You're a perfect person.