Which came first — the galaxy or the black hole? The classical answer: the galaxy first, then massive stars collapse to form black holes that grow over time. But new James Webb observations turn this picture upside down.
A research team studied Abell2744-QSO1 in detail — a tiny galaxy just 1,300 light-years across that existed 700 million years after the Big Bang. Its light has been traveling to us for over 13 billion years. The object belongs to the "Little Red Dots" class and is gravitationally lensed by galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (Pandora's Cluster), appearing magnified in three copies on the sky.
Using NIRSpec, scientists made the first direct mass measurement of a black hole within the first billion years after the Big Bang. The surrounding gas follows Keplerian motion — like planets orbiting the Sun — meaning nearly all the mass is concentrated at the center. The result: the black hole weighs ~50 million solar masses and makes up two-thirds of the system's total mass. For comparison, in nearby galaxies black holes are a tiny fraction of the total.
The gas composition is nearly pure hydrogen and helium, with metallicity below 0.5% of the Sun's. No signs of significant star formation. Essentially, this is a black hole that hasn't yet built a proper galaxy around it.
This is evidence for primordial black holes or direct collapse black holes — objects born massive, possibly within the first second after the Big Bang. The results are published in Nature and MNRAS.