Monster black holes that grew from cosmic ‘seeds' caught by JWST

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have brought to light some insights about a supermassive black hole with the help of data collected from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The powerful James Webb Telescope peeked 13 billion years back into the universe’s history and discovered the three ancient quasars — the highly luminous centers of galaxies powered by the mass around black hole.

The insights revealed about the evolution and early development of galaxies and black holes.

According to the findings published in Astrophysical Journal, the black holes at the center of the quasars were considerably larger than their galaxies.

It remains a great mystery what caused their size to increase.

The observation also found that some of the "earliest monster black holes grew from massive cosmic seeds."

Minghao Yue, a postdoc at MIT, said: "After the universe came into existence, there were seed black holes that then consumed material and grew in a very short time. One of the big questions is to understand how those monster black holes could grow so big, so fast."

Black holes are massive objects present in nearly every centre of the galaxy. Their gravitational pull is so potent that nothing could escape once entered its event horizon.

Astronomers suggested that black holes form when giant stars explode and reach the end of their life cycle. Their gravity increases considerably and over time, they gather mass and grow in size.

The other case may be when clouds of gas collapse and form a large black hole that gathers mass.

"The quasar outshines its host galaxy by orders of magnitude. And previous images were not sharp enough to distinguish what the host galaxy with all its stars looks like," Yue was quoted by Interesting Engineering.