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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

How huge black holes sprouted just after the Big Bang

Hubble observations of faint galaxies suggest that such objects could have been the seeds of very early supermassive black holes.
Illustration of a supermassive black hole shown in various shades of yellow and orange

Supermassive black holes (artist’s impression of one such object) in the early Universe might have formed from the collision of small galaxies. Credit: Mark Garlick/SPL

Astronomers are yet to work out the origin story of the gargantuan black holes found at the centre of many galaxies. Weighing billions of times more than the Sun, they seem to be the product of a rigmarole of astrophysical processes. How then, are they found lurking around the infant Universe shortly after the Big Bang?

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Nature 630, 795 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01703-3

References

  1. Mićić, M. et al. Astrophys. J. Lett. 968, L21 (2024).

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