Utilizing the infrared-sensitive instruments of the joint NASA/European Space Agency (ESA)/Canadian Space Agency (CSA) James Webb Space Telescope, a group of scientists has discovered the most distant active supermassive black hole to date. Located within a galaxy named CEERS 1019 — that existed just 570 million years after the formation of the universe — the black hole is less massive than any other black hole identified in the early universe.
What’s more, Webb’s data, which was collected as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey, has hinted at the existence of two additional black holes that are small in size and that could’ve existed around one billion years after the formation of the universe. CEERS was also able to identify eleven galaxies that existed when the universe was between the ages of 470 and 675 million years old.