12-13 billion light-years from Earth, astronomers have discovered 10 supermassive black holes

CTOnews.com, December 9 (Xinhua)-- Japanese astronomers have discovered 10 supermassive black holes with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, about 12-13 billion light-years from Earth.

This discovery is of great significance to astronomy and provides new evidence for the hypothesis that there were multiple supermassive black holes at the beginning of the universe 13.8 billion years ago, and provides important insights into the origin and evolution of black holes.

CTOnews.com learned from the report that the team analyzed near-infrared spectrometer data from the Weber Telescope and found characteristic wavelengths of black holes in 10 of the 185 galaxies located 12 billion to 13 billion light-years away, indicating the prevalence of black holes at that time.

Based on spectral and other information, it is estimated that the 10 black holes formed in the early days of the universe, with masses ranging from 1 million to 100 million times that of the sun.

According to reports, in the past, the search for black holes often depended on observing quasars, because there are huge black holes in the center of quasars. When black holes engulf the surrounding matter, quasars are very bright and easy to be observed. According to previous predictions made with the help of quasar studies, the number of giant black holes observed by the Webb telescope in this analysis is only 0.2, and the number of black holes found in this study is 50 times that previously predicted.