Which comes first, the galaxy or the black hole? We don\u2019t know, but scientists have long thought it could be the galaxy: Large stars within an existing galaxy consume their fuel and collapse to form black holes, which can gobble up surrounding material and merge over time to form more massive entities.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s hard to figure out how black holes millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, thousands of which have now been detected in the early universe, could have grown so quickly from such small seeds<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n Now, researchers using NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope have detected clear evidence that some supermassive black holes were enormous from the beginning, forming without a stellar collapse phase, and without a significantly more massive host galaxy to feed them.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a remarkable finding,\u201d said Roberto Maiolino of University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, co-author of studies published in Nature<\/a> and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a paradigm shift, a total revisiting of the classical scenarios of how black holes form and grow.\u201d<\/p>\n The team\u2019s conclusion is based on detailed observations<\/a> of Abell2744-QSO1 (QSO1), a prototypical Little Red Dot<\/a> that existed just 700 million years after the big bang.<\/p>\n Although QSO1 is only 1,300 light-years across, and its light has been traveling for more than 13 billion years, it is easier to study than most other Little Red Dots because it is gravitationally lensed<\/a> by galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (Pandora\u2019s Cluster<\/a>). QSO1 is both magnified and triply imaged, appearing in three different locations in the sky.<\/p>\n Initial studies<\/a> of QSO1 revealed compelling evidence that it may be little more than a cloud of glowing hydrogen and helium gas circling a supermassive black hole estimated at 40 million times the mass of the Sun. But as with other early black holes discovered by Webb, there was uncertainty about whether it really was that massive.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore now, all of the mass measurements of black holes in the early universe have been indirect, based on assumptions from what we know about them in the local universe. We didn\u2019t know if those assumptions really apply to the distant universe,\u201d said co-author Francesco D\u2019Eugenio, also of the University of Cambridge.<\/p>\n An image from NIRCam on NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope shows Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1, magnified and triply imaged by galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (Pandora\u2019s Cluster).<\/p>\n Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Lukas Furtak (Ben-Gurion University); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption> The team recognized that if QSO1\u2019s black hole is as massive as it looks, they should be able to use the integral field unit (IFU<\/a>) on Webb\u2019s NIRSpec (Near Infrared Spectrograph) to trace the effects of its gravity on the gas swirling around it, while also mapping the distribution of various elements in the gas.<\/p>\n Cambridge graduate student Ignas Juod\u017ebalis and Cosimo Marconcini of the University of Florence, lead authors on one of the studies, used the IFU observations<\/a> to map motions of hydrogen gas surrounding the black hole. When they plotted the rotation velocity<\/a> as a function of distance from the center, they found that the gas has Keplerian motion<\/a>: It orbits a central point in the same way that planets in our solar system orbit the Sun.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is important because it tells us that most of the mass of QSO1 is concentrated in the black hole at the center,\u201d said Juod\u017ebalis. \u201cIf the mass were more distributed, as it would be if there were a lot of stars, the gas would not have this perfect Keplerian rotation.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Keplerian motion is governed by simple laws of gravity<\/a>, the team was able to use the gas velocity measurements to calculate the black hole mass directly, a feat that had not previously been possible.<\/p>\n They found that not only is the black hole immense \u2014 roughly 50 million solar masses \u2014 it makes up, at minimum, an astonishing two-thirds of QSO1\u2019s total mass. This proportion is thousands of times greater than in nearby galaxies, where supermassive black holes make up only a tiny fraction of the host galaxy\u2019s total mass.<\/p>\n The IFU composition maps supported these results, showing that the gas throughout QSO1 is almost entirely hydrogen and helium, with very little of the heavier elements like oxygen that would be expected in a galaxy rich with stars and stellar debris. With a metallicity<\/a> less than 0.5% of the Sun, QSO1 is one of the most pristine galactic environments ever measured.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a phenomenal result,\u201d said Maiolino. \u201cIt is the first direct measurement of a black hole mass within the first billion years after the big bang, and it is consistent with the previous measurements.\u201d The team thinks this is a good sign that the assumptions used for indirect mass measurements are valid and the masses of other black holes in the early universe have not been overestimated. \u00a0<\/p>\n The outsized mass of QSO1 relative to its host galaxy suggests that it can\u2019t have formed gradually from much smaller, stellar-mass black holes merging and feeding. \u201cIt seems that we have found a black hole that does not have a substantial host galaxy and that has predated stellar processes,\u201d said Juod\u017ebalis. \u201cThis is very exciting because it is evidence for primordial black holes<\/a> or direct collapse black holes<\/a>, which have been theorized but not confirmed.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether QSO1\u2019s black hole evolved from a \u201cheavy seed\u201d that formed within the first second of the big bang or somewhat later from the collapse of a giant cloud of gas, it was almost certainly born big, and may be in the early stages of building a galaxy around it.<\/p>\n The team thinks that Little Red Dots like QSO1 cannot have been rare in the early universe, and is in the process of analyzing similar objects<\/a> to find out whether supermassive black holes actually do predate the galaxies where they currently reside.<\/p>\n The James Webb Space Telescope is the world\u2019s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).<\/p>\n To learn more about Webb, visit:<\/p>\n![\"Space](\"https:\/\/assets.science.nasa.gov\/dynamicimage\/assets\/science\/missions\/webb\/science\/2026\/05\/STScI-01KR482A7ZQEB4NJCM25BP8GA8.png?w=11542&h=8657&fit=clip&crop=faces%2Cfocalpoint\")
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