Space

20 readers

3 users here now

Cover author: Michał Kałużny http://astrofotografia.pl/

founded 2 years ago

James Webb Space Telescope spots a supermassive black hole in the early universe, much sooner after the Big Bang than scientists can explain (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

NASA's Webb telescope spotted an active supermassive black hole that existed 570 million years after the Big Bang. That's really early.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Seems NASA postulates that there is or was such a thing as mid-sized black holes that are created by the collision of massive stars in clusters...then these merge to form a SMB.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The collapse of star clusters is one hypothesis for the creation of intermediate mass black holes, yes, but those aren't predicated on any actual stars forming. Stars just form as a matter of course.

Stellar mass black holes generally require core-collapse supernovae - which require massive stars - in order to compress the core enough to trigger black hole formation. That isn't true for these larger types of black holes.