Artist’s impression of the bright core region of a quasar, an active galaxy. The supermassive black hole in the centre is surrounded by a bright disk of gas and dust. The dust component further out can obscure the view of the interior and shines predominantly in the mid-infrared range, light that can be analyzed by the James Webb Space Telescope. A bundled, high-energy particle beam protrudes into space from the immediate vicinity of the black hole perpendicular to the disc. Credit: © T. Müller / MPIA
Surprisingly unspectacular: Black hole already weighed over a billion solar masses in the early universe despite average appetite.
Peering into the early stages of the 13.8 billion-year-old universe, the DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02273-0