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Finding the Origins of Supermassive Black Holes

Glowing reddish-orange/yellow disk of material with dark black dusty lanes infalling into a hot, glowing-white center of material that shrouds the black hole
This is an artist's illustration of a supermassive black hole that is inside the dust-shrouded core of a vigorously star-forming "starburst" galaxy. It will eventually become an extremely bright quasar once the dust is gone. The research team believes that the object, discovered in a Hubble deep-sky survey, could be the evolutionary "missing link" between quasars and starburst galaxies. The dusty black hole dates back to only 750 million years after the big bang.
NASA, ESA, N. Bartmann

Astronomers have identified a rapidly growing black hole in the early universe that is considered a crucial "missing link" between young star-forming galaxies and the first supermassive black holes, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope to make this discovery.

This artist's impression is of a supermassive black hole that is inside the dust-shrouded core of a vigorously star-forming "starburst" galaxy. It will eventually become an extremely bright quasar once the dust is gone. Discovered in a Hubble deep-sky survey, the dusty black hole dates back to only 750 million years after the Big Bang.

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Last Updated
Oct 04, 2023
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NASA Hubble Mission Team
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