A new study, based on data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), has uncovered an extraordinary cosmic mystery: supermassive black holes in early galaxies appear to be up to a thousand times larger than expected. These black holes, found in galaxies just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, have masses up to 10% of the galaxies' stellar mass—much larger than the usual 0.01%. This surprising discovery, part of the All the Little Things (ALT) survey and the team's 3D mapping of distant galaxies, could help explain how these massive black holes grew so rapidly, a process previously thought to take over a billion years. While this study challenges existing theories of black hole growth, it offers exciting new possibilities for understanding the early universe. According to Jorryt Matthee, team leader at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, the findings are promising and may lead to ground-breaking revelations about black hole formation.
Could these findings change the way we understand black hole growth in the early universe?