Scientists have announced the discovery of the oldest known black hole: a supermassive black hole dating "only" 470 million years after the Big Bang. The surprising thing is how big it is for such a young galaxy: it's estimated to weigh between 10 million and 100 million solar masses (A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, is around 4 million solar masses), which would be equal to about 10% to 100% of the rest of the mass in that whole galaxy—surprising, given that supermassive black holes in current galaxies tend to be only about 0.1% of the mass of their entire galaxy.
This high mass ratio implies that this distant supermassive black hole formed from the collapse of a vast gas cloud, rather than by slow accretion of surrounding gas and stars—because 470 million years after the birth of the universe simply wouldn't have been enough time to form by accretion, according to theory. Scientists have wondered how supermassive black holes form, and at least in this case, it appears to have been by the "heavy seed" big gas cloud collapse method, rather than the "light seed" accretion method.
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^ From "Beware of the Blob!" in The X-Men #3, January 1964. Stan Lee script, Jack Kirby pencils, Paul Reinman inks, Artie Simek letters; original colorist unknown. Photoshop color reduction.
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