Berlin, Germany – A massive black hole discovered in the Cosmic Dawn has left astronomers baffled with its extraordinary size. Located at the center of the galaxy J1120+0641, this black hole weighs over a billion times the mass of the Sun.
While larger black holes are common in the universe today, the sheer size of J1120+0641 raises questions about how it accumulated such mass within less than 770 million years after the Big Bang. Previous theories about the formation of this galaxy and its black hole have been challenged by recent observations using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Initially discovered in 2011, J1120+0641 was considered the most distant quasar galaxy for several years, standing out with its incredible size and supermassive black hole. Quasar galaxies like this one feature central black holes that consume large amounts of material, surrounded by clouds of gas and dust that emit bright light as they are consumed.
Recent analysis of the light emitted by J1120+0641 revealed that the black hole is feeding at a relatively normal rate, contrary to previous speculations of super-Eddington accretion. This challenges the idea that these massive black holes grew rapidly by consuming material at an unsustainable rate.
One possible explanation for these gigantic black holes is that they originated from unusually large ‘seeds’, such as the collapse of massive clumps of matter or extremely large stars. This theory suggests that these black holes had a significant head start in their growth from the beginning.
As astronomers continue to discover more massive black holes from the early universe, the mystery deepens, and the search for answers to these cosmic enigmas continues. The research on J1120+0641 has been published in Nature Astronomy, shedding light on the evolution of these supermassive black holes at the dawn of time.