Supermassive black holes range from hundreds of thousands to billions of times the mass of our S Sun, and they’re thought to be at the centre of almost every large galaxy in the universe. But while scientists know plenty about them despite having only confirmed a handful, quite how they were formed remains something of a mystery. They puzzle astronomers because some of them are known to have formed very early in the universe’s life. While most black holes are created out of the remnants of a large star dying in a supernova explosion when it reaches the end of its life and collapses under its own gravity, this doesn’t explain how supermassive black holes emerged less than 700 million years after the Big Bang – and how they became so colossal. There just wouldn’t have been enough time for these huge black holes to form.
But a recent discovery may go some way towards a better understanding of how some supermassive black holes were able to form and reach such a great mass so early in the universe’s life. By making use of the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to locate a distant galaxy called UHZ1 in the direction of the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, which is nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster.
