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Scientists discover the oldest black hole to date

2023-11-11 20:55:00, Tech CNA

Scientists have discovered the oldest black hole to date, a cosmic space formed nearly 470 million years after the beginning of the creation of the universe, a phenomenon known as the 'Big Bang' theory. The discovery by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory confirms that supermassive black holes existed in the formative period of the universe. A black hole is a part of space in the universe where gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape.

The universe is thought to be 13.7 billion years old, which means that the recently discovered black hole, known as UHZ1, could be nearly 13.2 billion years old.

Scientists have been surprised by the size of this black hole, 10 times larger than the black hole found in our galaxy known as the "Milky Way".

The findings, which were published days ago, confirm theories that supermassive black holes existed at the dawn of the universe's formation.

Scientists from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory began collaborating last year to study and detect the black hole.

Scientists believe the black hole weighs anywhere from 10% to 100% the mass of all the stars in its galaxy, says Akos Bogdan with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Researchers believe that the black hole was formed by colossal clouds of gas formed by the collision of a neighboring galaxy with a galaxy with stars. The two galaxies became one and the black hole swallowed them.

The two telescopes, Webb and Chandra, used the technique of focusing gravitational light to zoom in on the location of the UHZ1 galaxy and the black hole.

The telescopes used light from a much closer galaxy cluster, about 3.2 billion light-years from Earth, to zoom in on the UHZ1 galaxy and the black hole, far away on its outskirts.

Launching into space in 2021, about 1.6 million kilometers away, the Webb telescope is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory observing the universe through infrared rays.

In 1999, the space shuttle Columbia launched the Chandra telescope, which observes the universe using X-rays. That same year, NASA revealed the first images from the explosion of the constellation Cassiopeia-A, a phenomenon known as a supernova.

Nearly a quarter of a century later, the telescope still continues to help scientists understand the universe./ VOA