New Discovery: Supermassive Black Hole Found in Oldest Galaxy Raises Questions

An illustration of a supermassive black hole.

Photo: ROBIN DIENEL / TT NEWS AGENCY CARNEGIE INSTITUTION

The galaxy GN-z11 was discovered by the Hubble telescope in 2016 and was then the oldest galaxy discovered, about 13.4 billion years old.

Since then, the galaxy has been a mystery to scientists. For being so old, it was very bright.

Now a research study has possibly found an explanation. In the galaxy is a supermassive black hole – about 1.6 million times the size of our sun.

Raises exciting questions

Black holes – as the name suggests – do not emit light, but their size means they can be hot and strong enough to produce the intense radiation seen.

The black hole is the earliest ever discovered and raises questions about today’s theories about the mysterious black holes.

Roberto Maiolino says that current theories of how black holes form cannot explain how the newly discovered hole can be so large so early in the universe’s history.

Eats a sun every five years

– It basically eats up the equivalent of an entire sun every five years. It’s much higher than we thought would be possible for these black holes,” he told NPR.

Much is unclear about black holes, but what researchers have seen is that they are formed when a massive star collapses in on itself, writes the Swedish Space Agency.

Inside a black hole, the gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape, making them invisible to the naked eye.

The newly discovered black hole may instead have been created by large clouds imploding even before they were stars.

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2024-01-19 21:29:49
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