Many of us would be tempted to say that back when the Universe was ‘only’ 670 million years old, it barely had any fine-tuned structures like galaxies, black holes, and solar systems. But that’s far from the truth, and a new discovery made by an international team led by University of Arizona researchers confirms it.
CBS News writes about the new discovery that indicates a supermassive black hole and an ancient quasar dubbed J0313-1806 at a staggering distance: 13 billion light-years away. This also means that the enormous structures were there 13 billion years ago. And while it sounds like an eternity for us humans, it practically means shortly after the Big Bang, the very birth of the Universe.
20 million light-years farther away than the previous record-holding quasar
The J0313-1806 quasar became the farthest and oldest quasar ever discovered. The supermassive black hole from the newfound quasar’s center is even more intriguing, as it challenges known theories about the formation of black holes during the early Universe.
The lead author, Feige Wang, declared:
This is the earliest evidence of how a supermassive black hole is affecting its host galaxy around it,
From observations of less distant galaxies, we know that this has to happen, but we have never seen it happening so early in the universe.
Scientists were also astonished to find out that the quasar is the first to show evidence for an outpouring of gaseous and hot wind from its black hole at tremendous speeds: about a fifth of the speed of light.
The team of researchers presented their findings at the 237th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, and a later publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters is expected.
