Stay Curious. Stay Connected.
MailNewsletters♡Donate Now
Sign up
*Password must be at least 8 characters and contain one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number and one symbol.
Already have an account?
By submitting, you consent that you are at least 18 years of age and to receive information about MPR's or APMG entities' programs and offerings. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about MPR, APMG entities, and its sponsors. You may opt-out at any time clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email communication. View our Privacy Policy.
Sign in to your profile
Forgot Password?
New to MPR News?
Welcome back
to news
for you
Reset Password

Enter the username on file and we'll send you a code to reset your password.

Still require assistance or not sure what your User Name is?
Welcome back
to news
for you
Email Verification

A verification code has been emailed to

Still awaiting the code?
Hannah Bloch, NPR

Astronomers discover a supermassive black hole dating to cosmic dawn

Go Deeper.

Create an account or log in to save stories.

Like this?

Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.

A supermassive black hole, like the one illustrated here, has been discovered 12.8 billion light years away, at the center of an exceptionally bright quasar.
A supermassive black hole, like the one illustrated here, has been discovered 12.8 billion light years away, at the center of an exceptionally bright quasar.

SDSS J0100+2802 is the rather understated name scientists have given to an exceptionally luminous, newly discovered quasar. It's 12.8 billion light years away and shines as brightly as 420 million suns. At its center, there's a super-sized black hole — as massive as 12 billion suns — that formed some 900 million years after the Big Bang.

It's far more massive than any other known black hole from that time, and astronomers aren't sure how it grew so big so fast.

An international team of astronomers reported their discovery in the February 26 issue of Nature, which calls the black hole at the center of SDSS J0100+2802 "a giant in the young universe."

The newly discovered quasar, indicated in red at top right, was first detected via a 2.4-meter telescope at China's Yunnan Observatory, whose dome appears at bottom right.
The newly discovered quasar, indicated in red at top right, was first detected via a 2.4-meter telescope at China's Yunnan Observatory, whose dome appears at bottom right.

What exactly is a black hole? NASA defines it this way:

"A black hole is anything but empty space. Rather, it is a great amount of matter packed into a very small area — think of a star ten times more massive than the Sun squeezed into a sphere approximately the diameter of New York City. The result is a gravitational field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape."

Xiaohui Fan, one of the Nature study's co-authors and an astronomer at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory, said in a university press release that the discovery raises important questions:

"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?" Fan said. "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."

In other words, the discovery may help scientists better understand the universe when it was young. But — as theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser noted in NPR's 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog — some, like Stephen Hawking, believe that black holes (as we think we know them) may not exist at all. Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.