James Webb Telescope Spies Earliest Black Hole Merger 13 Billion Light-Years Away
May 17, 2024Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to detect the earliest known merger of black holes, occurring 740 million years after the Big Bang.
This discovery is the most distant detection of black hole mergers, over 13 billion light-years away.
The merging black holes are massive, with one being as large as 50 million suns, posing a challenge to existing cosmological theories.
The NIRCam infrared instrument on the telescope was instrumental in observing the dense gas cloud movement around one black hole and locating the second one.
This finding offers new insights into the early universe and black hole formation, setting the stage for future scientific inquiry.
Summary based on 14 sources
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Sources
The Guardian • May 16, 2024
Black holes observed colliding when universe was only 740m years oldYahoo News • May 16, 2024
Webb telescope uncovers merger of two massive black holes from early universeAP News • May 16, 2024
Webb telescope uncovers merger of two massive black holes from early universeGizmodo • May 16, 2024
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