Discovery of the oldest black hole in the universe… What is its age?
Scientists have discovered the most likely candidate for the oldest black hole in the universe to date, believed to have formed about 470 million years after the Big Bang.
The results provide support for theoretical investigations that until recently suggested the existence of massive black holes in the early universe.
The study was conducted in collaboration between the James Webb Space Telescope, a NASA agency, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, according to the Associated Press.
According to the study, the estimated age of this black hole is approximately 13.2 billion years, while the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years.
One remarkable aspect for scientists is that this massive black hole, in terms of size, is said to be about 10 times larger than the black hole in our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
The weight of this black hole is estimated to be between 10 and 100 times the mass of all the stars in its galaxy.
Although this ratio may seem enormous, it differs significantly from the few black holes in our galaxy and other nearby galaxies.
Priyamvada Natarajan from Yale University, who participated in the study published in the journal “Nature Astronomy,” said, “It is still far too early to judge how the universe was shaped by this massive black hole.”
