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<\/a><\/p>\nThis Webb image shows the highly distorted red galaxy MRG-M0138 seen through a foreground cluster of galaxies (white sources). Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ CSA \/ Webb.<\/p>\n
MRG-M0138<\/a> is located over 10 billion light-years<\/a> away, behind a massive cluster of galaxies that magnifies and stretches its appearance.<\/p>\n As a result, the distant galaxy appears about 30 times larger than it normally would.<\/p>\n MRG-M0138 is no longer forming stars and its central black hole is also quiet.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to detect this black hole at a distance of 10 billion light years by combining Webb\u2019s sharp vision with a natural magnifying glass,\u201d said Dr. Andrew Newman, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science and the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n Dr. Newman and his colleagues observed MRG-M0138 with Webb\u2019s NIRSpec Integral Field Spectrograph.<\/p>\n \u201cBy combining the Webb data with gravitational lensing, we could peer inside the black hole\u2019s sphere of influence, where its gravity boosts the speeds of stars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of the best techniques we have to weigh a black hole, so we were excited to extend it to a much earlier period in cosmic history.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly a handful of dormant black holes this massive have been found before, all in the nearby Universe.\u201d<\/p>\n The discovery offers new clues about how black holes and galaxies grew together in the early Universe.<\/p>\n Nearby galaxies show close connections between the masses of their central black holes and the properties of the galaxies around them.<\/p>\n But it has been difficult to test whether these relationships already existed billions of years ago.<\/p>\n The new findings suggest that the densest galaxies were sites of rapid black hole growth early in the history of the cosmos.<\/p>\n Although now dormant, MRG-M0138 was probably a powerful quasar in its past.<\/p>\n \u201cDetermining how stars collectively move within the core of this distant galaxy has allowed us to measure the mass of its otherwise undetectable supermassive black hole,\u201d said University College London\u2019s Professor Richard Ellis.<\/p>\n \u201cBy demonstrating the feasibility of such a technique for galaxies in the early Universe, we can now undertake a more complete census of how black holes develop over time and infer their role in shaping galaxy evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n