Astronomers have used Hubble Space Telescope data to identify a rapidly growing black hole in the early universe that is considered a critical link between star-forming galaxies and the first supermassive black holes.
One of the best-studied areas of the night sky is the Great Observations Origins Deep Survey-North field, and the black hole has gone unrecognized until now.
Hubble data helped the team determine that GNz7q is a black hole that was formed 750 million years after the big bang.
The team discovered that Hubble had found a source of light that was consistent with the radiation from materials falling onto a black hole.
Black holes in dusty, early star-forming galaxies are predicted by theories and computer simulations, but have not been observed until now.
The black hole could help answer a longstanding question in astronomy: How did it get so huge so fast?
The team hopes to find similar objects using high-resolution surveys and the James Webb Space Telescope to find out how common fast-growing black holes really are.
The astronomer theories from NASA are here. This is not a finished story.
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