In today’s space news, a consortium of major observatories, including the Very Large Telescope array (VLT), Large Binocular Telescope Observatory (LBT), and W. M. Keck Observatory, have been used to observe a massive structure in the early universe. 

Consisting of a central massive galaxy surrounded by six smaller (but still large) galaxies, this system contains a central supermassive black hole (SMBH) that is roughly one billion solar masses in size. Light from this object has been traveling toward us since the universe was less than a billion years old, and the existence of such a large SMBH at such an early time in our universe confirms that massive systems formed rapidly in the early universe.

According to lead author Marco Mignoli: This research was mainly driven by the desire to understand some of the most challenging astronomical objects — supermassive black holes in the early Universe. These are extreme systems and, to date, we have no good explanation for their existence. 

This work appears in the latest issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics. 

“Our finding lends support to the idea that the most distant and massive black holes form and grow within massive dark matter halos in large-scale structures, and that the absence of earlier detections of such structures was likely due to observational limitations,” says Colin Norman of Johns Hopkins University, also a co-author on the study. 

The next generation of massive telescopes, and the JWST, if it launches, will provide needed insights on these systems to help theorists understand how the largest early systems formed through one all-in process, while other systems formed slowly through merger-related processes. Until these massive new telescopes are online, we look forward to more discoveries like this, of the most extreme and rare systems which are already visible to today’s telescopes.

More Information

LBT press release 

“Web of the Giant: Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Large-Scale Structure Around the z = 6.31 Quasar SDSS J1030+0524,” Marco Mignoli et al., 2020 Oct. 1, Astronomy & Astrophysics (preprint on arxiv.org)