Galaxy GN-z11 (NASA)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured images of one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. The new images, it said, unlock secrets about luminous galaxy GN-z11, which existed when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was only about 430 million years old.
A team studying GN-z11 with Webb found the first clear evidence that the galaxy is hosting a central, supermassive black hole that is rapidly accreting matter. Their finding makes this the farthest active supermassive black hole spotted to date.
“We found extremely dense gas that is common in the vicinity of supermassive black holes accreting gas,” explained principal investigator Roberto Maiolino of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Kavli Institute of Cosmology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. “These were the first clear signatures that GN-z11 is hosting a black hole that is gobbling matter.”
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GN-z11 is a high-redshift galaxy, meaning it is very far away and the light we see from it has been traveling for a very long time. It is located in the constellation Ursa Major and was discovered in 2015. At the time of its discovery, it was the farthest known galaxy from Earth, but it has since been surpassed by JADES-GS-z13-0, which was discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2022.
The discovery of GN-z11 has helped us to learn more about the early universe and how galaxies form and evolve. It is a reminder that there is still much that we do not know about the universe, and that there are many more discoveries waiting to be made.
Using Webb, the team also found indications of ionized chemical elements typically observed near accreting supermassive black holes. Additionally, they discovered a very powerful wind being expelled by the galaxy. Such high-velocity winds are typically driven by processes associated with vigorously accreting supermassive black holes.
“Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) has revealed an extended component, tracing the host galaxy, and a central, compact source whose colors are consistent with those of an accretion disk surrounding a black hole,” said investigator Hannah Übler, also of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Kavli Institute.
