It's equivalent to 6 billion times the sun, and the Webb telescope first measured the mass of a billion light-year hibernation black holes.

IT House, June 7, a team of astronomers, led by Andrew Newman of Carnegie Observatory, directly measured, for the first time, the quality of a dormant black hole hidden at the heart of early cosmic galaxies.

This black hole is extremely large and is six billion times the size of the sun. Today, it no longer lights the surrounding area, but the research team, with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), observed the movement of stars at the heart of galaxies affected by the gravity of a black hole and eventually measured its mass. The results were published in the Science journal.

In contrast, black holes in active suction are easily discovered. For decades, astronomers have located these black holes by searching for quasars. The quasars are one of the brightest objects in the universe, driven by the energy released when the gas crashes into a black hole in the heart of the galaxy.

According to information from the IT House, the black hole measured this time was at the centre of the galaxy MRG-M0138. It is a giant galaxy that sends light from the universe only about 3 billion years old and eventually reaches the Webb Space Telescope. At present, the galaxy has stopped breeding new stars and its central black hole has fallen into silence.

Prior to that, astronomers had been able to measure the quality of black holes only in the near universe. In 2020, scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for tracking single star orbits and successfully detecting black holes in the heart of the galaxy.

Astronomers have measured the mass of black holes within a range of approximately 700 million light-years from Earth, using the overall movement of stars at the heart of galaxies. However, without the full detection equipment of the Webb telescope, combined with the gravitational lens effect, humans are simply unable to carry out the same mass measurements for more distant galaxies.

Newman explains, "We have successfully detected this black hole, which is 10 billion light years away, by combining the ultra-high observation resolution of the Webb telescope with the natural `magnification lens' of the universe."

The galaxy MRG-M0138 is behind a giant constellation of galaxies that magnifies and distorts its images, making this distant galaxy look 30 times larger than normal.

“In combination with the observational data from the Webb telescope and the gravitational lens effect, we are able to see the gravitational impact range of the black hole. Within this area, the gravity of the black hole will significantly increase the speed of the star's operation." Newman added, “This is one of the most effective means of measuring the quality of black holes at present, and we are therefore very pleased that this technology can be applied to the earlier evolution of the universe.”

Humans had previously found only a few hibernation black holes of equal size in the immediate vicinity of the universe.

This discovery provides a whole new clue to the confluence of black holes and galaxies in the early universe. In nearby galaxies, the mass of the black hole at the heart of the galaxy is closely related to its own characteristics. However, it has been difficult for the scientific community for a long time to verify whether such links existed billions of years ago. This study shows that, at the beginning of the life of the universe, within the most dense galaxies, black holes experienced rapid growth.

Today's silent MRG-M0138 is likely to be a very bright quasar in the past. The energy released by the high-speed growth of a black hole disperses and strips the gases needed to breed a star, which may also be the reason why the galaxy eventually stops forming a star.

Follow-up observations will continue. The team is currently analysing data from other galaxies of the same type collected by the Webb telescope. The Euclid satellite and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will also find more gravitational lenses that were previously unknown in the future. The giant Magellan telescope, which is being built by the Carnegie Institute of Science as a founding partner at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, will be more sophisticated in the resolution of star movements in distant galaxies than the Webb telescope.

The research team indicated that, following the application of the system to more galaxies, astronomers would further uncover the mystery of the formation and growth of super-mass black holes and how they shaped the whole evolution of galaxies.

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