The galaxy UHZ1 hosts an X-ray-bright supermassive black hole seen 470 million years after the Big Bang, as NASA announced in 2023
UHZ1 (galaxy behind the cluster Abell 2744) · claimed on Nov 6, 2023 · original source
On 6 November 2023 NASA and the Center for Astrophysics (CfA) announced that Chandra and Webb had found the most distant black hole yet seen in X-rays, in the galaxy UHZ1, weighing an estimated 10 to 100 million suns. The team called it the best evidence yet that some black holes are born heavy, from collapsing gas clouds. The X-ray signal rested on a small number of photons, though. A reanalysis published in The Astrophysical Journal on 14 October 2026, and covered in the press on 15 November 2026, says the detection does not hold up once more Chandra data are added and that mid-infrared data from Webb show no sign of a buried active nucleus. The case would be settled by a robust, reproducible X-ray detection or independent signs of an active nucleus (in spectra or infrared data), or by limits that firmly rule out a black hole of the claimed power.
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