Webb’s Historic Discovery: The Farthest Active Supermassive Black Hole Ever Found
Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have made groundbreaking discoveries in galaxy GN-z11, which is one of the most distant and luminous galaxies known. They identified a supermassive black hole responsible for the galaxy’s brightness and found a pristine gas clump that may lead to the discovery of the universe’s first stars, providing significant insights into cosmic evolution. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com
Delivering on its promise to transform our understanding of the early universe, the 
This image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument shows a portion of the GOODS-North field of galaxies. At lower right, a pullout highlights the galaxy GN-z11, which is seen at a time just 430 million years after the big bang. The image reveals an extended component, tracing the GN-z11 host galaxy, and a central source whose colors are consistent with those of an accretion disk surrounding a black hole. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Marcia Rieke (University of Arizona), Daniel Eisenstein (CfA)
Webb Unlocks Secrets of One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen
Looking deeply into space and time, two teams using detected with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, this galaxy — one of the youngest and most distant ever observed — is so bright that it is challenging scientists to understand why. Now, GN-z11 is giving up some of its secrets.
Vigorous Black Hole Is Most Distant Ever Found
A team studying GN-z11 with Webb found the first clear evidence that the galaxy is hosting a central, supermassive research on the pristine gas clump in GN-z11’s halo has been accepted for publication by Astronomy & Astrophysics. The results of the study of GN-z11’s black hole were published in the journal Nature on January 17, 2024. The data was obtained as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), a joint project between the NIRCam and NIRSpec teams.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s 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 (
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