An international group of astronomers, led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin’s Cosmic Frontier Center, has confirmed the most distant black hole to date. The black hole and its host galaxy, named CAPERS-LRD-z9, existed 500 million years after the Big Bang—placing them about 13.3 billion years in the past when the universe was only a small fraction of its current age.
“When looking for black holes, this is about as far back as you can practically go. We’re really pushing the boundaries of what current technology can detect,” said Anthony Taylor, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cosmic Frontier Center and lead on the team that made the discovery. Their research was published Aug. 6 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“While astronomers have found a few, more distant candidates,” added Steven Finkelstein, a co-author on the paper and director of the Cosmic Frontier Center, “they have yet to find the distinct spectroscopic signature associated with a black hole.”
The team used spectroscopy to identify evidence of fast-moving gas around CAPERS-LRD-z9’s black hole—a key indicator of such objects. “There aren’t many other things that create this signature,” explained Taylor. “And this galaxy has it!”
Data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), specifically from its CANDELS-Area Prism Epoch of Reionization Survey (CAPERS) program launched in 2021, provided critical observations for this discovery.
“The first goal of CAPERS is to confirm and study the most distant galaxies,” said Mark Dickinson, a co-author on the paper and the CAPERS team lead. “JWST spectroscopy is the key to confirming their distances and understanding their physical properties.”
Initially identified as an unusual spot in telescope images, CAPERS-LRD-z9 belongs to a recently recognized class called “Little Red Dots.” These compact and bright red galaxies are thought to exist only within 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.
“The discovery of Little Red Dots was a major surprise from early JWST data, as they looked nothing like galaxies seen with the Hubble Space Telescope,” explained Finkelstein. “Now, we’re in the process of figuring out what they’re like and how they came to be.”
The presence of such brightness in these early galaxies suggests supermassive black holes may be responsible rather than large numbers of stars—since so many stars would not likely have formed so soon after cosmic dawn.
Black holes emit significant light due to heated material falling into them. Confirming one inside CAPERS-LRD-z9 supports theories linking these objects with Little Red Dots’ luminosity.
The red color observed may result from thick clouds of gas around these black holes shifting emitted light toward longer wavelengths. “We’ve seen these clouds in other galaxies,” explained Taylor. “When we compared this object to those other sources, it was a dead ringer.”
Estimates suggest this newly discovered black hole could be up to 300 million times more massive than our sun—about half as massive as all stars within its galaxy combined.
Such findings raise questions about how quickly supermassive black holes grew or whether they started off larger than previously believed models suggest. “This adds to growing evidence that early black holes grew much faster than we thought possible,” said Finkelstein. “Or they started out far more massive than our models predict.”
Researchers plan further high-resolution observations using JWST for deeper insight into both CAPERS-LRD-z9 and early galactic evolution involving supermassive black holes.“This is a good test object for us,” said Taylor.“We haven’t been able to study early black hole evolution until recently, and we are excited to see what we can learn from this unique object.”
Additional data supporting this research came from observations by Kitt Peak National Observatory’s Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), operated by NSF NOIRLab.
