Scientists have discovered what appears to be the oldest supermassive black hole.
The black hole, dubbed PSO J0309 + 27, was formed just 900 million years after the Big Bang, according to Live Science. It sounds like it happened a long time ago, but from a cosmic point of view, it's nothing (at least compared to the age of the universe).
Based on their discovery, a team of Italian astronomers suspect that there were many more black holes in the early days of the universe.
The team was able to locate the black hole because it emitted a blazar – a powerful explosion focused into a beam of ions. According to a study published in the journal Astronomy Astrophysics last week, the explosion took place nearly 13 billion years ago, but the light it emits is still reaching Earth.
“Thanks to our discovery, we can say that during the first billion years of the universe's life, there were a large number of very massive black holes emitting powerful relativistic jets,” said lead researcher Sylvia Belladitta of the University of Insubria in a press release.
Because the jet streams emitted by the blazar are so narrow, it is far more likely that there were more ancient black holes than discovered ones that simply do not face Earth.
“Observing the blazar is extremely important,” Belladitta said. “For every blazar found, there should be 100 more of them, but most of them are oriented differently and therefore too faint to be seen.”
Sources: Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech
