James Webb Telescope Spots Trio of Supermassive Black Holes

The James Webb Space Telescope has detected a galaxy hosting three supermassive black holes, two of which appear close to merging. This is the first time scientists have found evidence of a young galaxy with an active trio, according to a study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics Source: Clarin, Infobae.

The galaxy, designated J0148-4214, lies over 12.5 billion light-years away, placing it about a billion years after the Big Bang Source: Clarin. The discovery was made possible by Webb's near-infrared spectrograph, which can separate individual wavelengths of light, revealing broad hydrogen lines moving at thousands of kilometers per second—behavior only a growing supermassive black hole can cause Source: Infobae.

Key findings

• Two of the black holes are so close that their gravitational forces are pulling them together, suggesting an imminent merger Source: Clarin.
• The third black hole may eventually join the merger or could have been ejected from an earlier one Source: Infobae.
• The observation provides direct evidence that black holes have been growing and shaping galaxies since the early universe Source: Clarin.

Significance

This discovery was impossible before Webb, as the Hubble Space Telescope lacked the sensitivity to resolve the galaxy beyond a few pixels Source: Infobae. Astronomers note that how black holes become so massive remains "one of the pending questions in astrophysics" Source: Clarin. The finding offers a rare glimpse into black hole growth in the early cosmos.