UHZ1

The discovery of this object has led astronomers to suggest the seeds of the first quasars may have been direct-collapse black holes, from the collapse of supermassive primordial stars at the beginning of our universe.

Impact on astronomical research

The Chandra-JWST discovery of a quasar with a redshift of ≈ 10.1 at the center of UHZ1 reveals that accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) already existed at about 470 million years after the Big Bang. The detection of early black holes as they transition from "seeds" to supermassive black holes (BHs) provides good sources at high redshift, facilitating the testing on seeding and growth models for BHs. One of the open questions about the formation of supermassive BHs is whether they originate from stellar-mass black holes, remnants from the death of massive stars or whether there are mechanisms that operate to form heavier initial seeds to begin its formation. UHZ1's data shows it requires either continuous growth exceeding the Eddington limit for >200 Myr, or a massive seed. Data collected provides a clue to the seeding mechanism and supports it.