Astronomers have found the most distant (& oldest) supermassive black hole (so far), when our Universe was just 470 million years old (The Universe's age is 13.787±0.020 billion years old).
Estimated to be between 10-100 million times the mass of our Sun. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way (Sagittarius A*) is ~4.3 million times the mass of our Sun.
Dubbed 'UHZ1', its massive size so early challenges our formation theories of supermassive black holes — &/or the Universe.
@DrJackBrown
Is that 2 different black holes?
Oldest in the universe, or the Milky Way?
Occurs to me to ask if we've been observing any planets or black holes outside of the Milky Way.
I hadn't considered it before. But now that I am, I know that we have observed galaxies that are close to the beginning of the universe not just our galaxy. Not sure if we have observed black holes or planets outside of our galaxy but I know we have seen galaxies out at the edge of the start of the universe.
@FireMonkey 2 of 2/ Planets in other galaxies are too far to see/detect with current technology – with rare exceptions (using gravitational lensing/micro-lensing techniques, however these observations are not repeatable with the same extra-galactic planet).
Ω
@FireMonkey 1 of 2/ This black hole is far, far outside of our galaxy
(3.2 billion light-years from Earth) in the center of another galaxy (UHZ1).
Yes, virtually every galaxy has a super massive black hole at its center. Very rare exceptions have been observed – probably as a result of two galaxies colliding/merging and their respective black holes coalesce or possibly getting ejected from one of the galaxies.
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