Ancient, Monster Black Hole 12 Billion Times the Mass of Our Sun Mystifies Astronomers

Scientists may have discovered the most massive black hole in the early universe to date. They've found a super bright quasar in the early universe powered by a supermassive black hole.

The quasar, named SDSS J0100+2802, is actually the brightest quasar in the early universe. Quasars themselves are some of the most powerful objects in the universe and evolved from the earliest epoch, only 900 million years after the Big Bang. This quasar in particular has a black hole with a staggering mass of 12 billion solar masses and has a luminosity of 420 trillion suns.

Yet this ultraluminous quasar has raised some questions for astronomers. The quasar is extremely bright and the black hole is massive, so it seems strange that they exist in the early universe.

"How can a quasar so luminous, and a black hole so massive, form so early in the history of the universe, at an era soon after the earliest stars and galaxies have just emerged?" asked Xiaohui Fan, one of the researchers, in a news release. "And what is the relationship between this monster black hole and its surrounding environment, including its host galaxy? This ultraluminous quasar with its supermassive black hole provides a unique laboratory to the study of the mass assembly and galaxy formation around the most massive black holes in the early universe."

The newly discovered quasar dates to a time close to the end of an important cosmic event, referred to as the "epoch of reionization." During this time, light from the earliest generations of galaxies and quasars is thought to have ended the "cosmic dark ages."

"By comparison, our own Milky Way has a black hole with a mass of only four million solar masses at its center; the black hole that powers this new quasar is 3,000 times heavier," said Fan.

The researchers are planning on carrying out further investigations on this quasar with more international telescopes. This should tell them more details about the quasar and shed light on the physical processes that led to the formation of the earliest supermassive black holes.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

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