"An ancient and nearly naked black hole that astronomers believe may have been created in the first fraction of a second after the big bang has been spotted by the James Webb space telescope. If confirmed as a so-called primordial black hole, a theoretical class of object predicted to exist by Stephen Hawking but never before seen, the discovery would upend prevailing theories of the universe."
"But the latest observations by the space telescope, which reveal a gargantuan black hole with only a sparse halo of surrounding material dating back to the dawn of the cosmos, appear incompatible with this sequence of events. This black hole is nearly naked, said Prof Roberto Maiolino, a cosmologist at the University of Cambridge who is one of the team behind the observations. This is really challenging for the theories. It seems that this black hole has formed without being preceded by a galaxy"
A gargantuan, nearly naked black hole has been observed by the James Webb Space Telescope dating to about 700 million years after the Big Bang. The object has only a sparse halo of surrounding material, inconsistent with formation via collapse of an earlier galaxy. The properties match predictions for primordial black holes formed in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang, when denser regions collapsed. Primordial black holes could act as gravitational seeds for the first galaxies. The candidate QSO1 is one of several red, compact, bright sources interpreted as ancient supermassive black holes. Confirmation of a primordial origin would challenge prevailing models of cosmic structure formation.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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