The Webb telescope observed quasars where they should not have been. Something’s wrong with black hole theory

The James Webb Space Telescope has observed solitary quasars in the early Universe. The discovery challenges current theories about how supermassive black holes formed after the Big Bang.

A little context. A quasar is an extremely bright region at the center of a young galaxy, resulting from the accretion of gas and dust from a supermassive black hole. These are the brightest and hottest objects in space, and they serve as a beacon for us to study the early Universe.

Astronomers believed that the first quasars formed in areas with a high density of dark matter, so they were surrounded by many galaxies. However, the James Webb Space Telescope has observed ancient quasars that appear to be in regions with few nearby galaxies, which is inconsistent with modern cosmological models.

Why is this important? The presence of single quasars detected by the Webb telescope challenges the idea that these objects formed in the densest regions of the early Universe.

The discovery suggests the opposite: supermassive black holes can grow in less dense environments. However, cosmological models do not suggest formation mechanisms consistent with this idea. Once again, Webb questioned what we know about the universe.

The discovery is in the details. An MIT team used the Webb Space Telescope to observe faint lights reaching us from the early Universe 13 billion years ago.

Led by astronomer Anna-Christina Eilers, the researchers identified five ancient quasars, some located in dense fields with more than 50 nearby galaxies, and others in nearly empty regions. The existence of quasars in areas with few surrounding galaxies raised the question of how they could grow so quickly without having enough material to feed them.

Conclusions. The study suggests that quasars are not necessarily found in the highest density regions of the early Universe. Some appear to be off the beaten path.

This discovery seems to imply the existence of unknown processes that allowed black holes to grow rapidly after the Big Bang.

So what now? Researchers plan to look for galaxies that may be hidden by cosmic dust around lonely quasars. If they don’t find them, they will confirm their suspicions: we will have to adjust our theories about how the most massive structures in the early Universe formed.

Image | NASA-JPL, Eilers et al.

In Hatak | The Webb Telescope has managed to penetrate into the core of a nearby galaxy, where a ferociously active black hole resides.