Oldest Black hole detected

November 10, 2023

Scientists have discovered a black hole that is 10 times larger than the one in our Milky Way galaxy and also the oldest one.
- Black holes are very dense objects with such intense gravity that even light cannot escape, if it strays too close.
- They are formed when massive stars die or there is a direct collapse of gases.
The new black hole is a record breaker: the most distant yet observed in X-rays.
These new findings confirmed the claims that there were super-massive black holes existed at the dawn of the universe.

Gravitational Lensing occurs when massive objects distort and magnify light from objects behind them, acting as cosmic telescopes and making distant galaxies appear brighter.

NASA’s James Webb Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory teamed up over the past year to make the observations.
They used a technique called gravitational lensing to magnify the region of space where this galaxy, UHZ1, and its black hole are located.
The age of this black hole can be estimated to be around 13.2 billion years, considering the universe’s age to be 13.7 billion years.
- Thus it dates back to 470 million years after the Big Bang.