File:Two Extremely Distant Active Supermassive Black Holes (NIRSpec MSA Emission Spectra) (53029781531).png

English: In a survey of 100,000 galaxies (called Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science, or CEERS), Webb spotted the most distant active supermassive black hole to date, plus two more small early black holes and 11 early galaxies. All of these objects existed in the first 1.1 billion years after the big bang.

Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/webb-detects-most-dista...

This image: Researchers using data and images from the James Webb Space Telescope’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey identified two supermassive black holes that are more similar in size to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy’s center, than other extremely distant galaxies observed earlier by other telescopes. Webb’s spectra show that these black holes weigh only 10 million times the mass of the Sun. Other very distant supermassive black holes we’ve long known about are 1 billion times the mass of the Sun.

Credits: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI). Science: Steven Finkelstein (University of Texas at Austin), Dale Kocevski (Colby College), Pablo Arrabal Haro (NOIRLab).

Image description: A graphic titled “Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, Two Extremely Distant Active Supermassive Black Holes.” The graphic shows the redshift of two active supermassive black holes. At top right is the complete NIRCam image of the field. To its left is a large, continuous pull out, labeled NIRCam imaging, which shows the locations of two objects, with open white boxes. The image is filled with galaxies of different colors, shapes, and sizes. Two white lines from the image connect to pull outs that run to the left of two graphs at the bottom. In the inset images are blurry red dots. The top one reads CEERS 2782, 12.7 billion years. The bottom image reads CEERS 746, 12.8 billion years. To the right are two line graphs corresponding to the two highlighted black holes. These are labeled NIRSpec Microshutter Array Spectroscopy. They show the shift in the position of emission lines.