Earliest black hole discovered

The supermassive black hole dates from just 500 million years after the Big Bang

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A supermassive black hole has been discovered that formed when the Universe was just 3 per cent of its current age – around 500 million years after the Big Bang, or 13.3 billion years ago. Found in the centre of a galaxy known as CAPERS-LRD-z9, it’s the most distant black hole ever confirmed and a rare glimpse into the cosmic dawn.

The black hole was spotted by an international team of astronomers led by the Cosmic Frontier Center at the University of Texas at Austin, using data from the James Webb Space Telescope.