Supermassive black holes in the early universe are 800 times heavier than they should be.
Standard models of space history assume that galaxies and their central black holes grow at a steady, synchronized pace. These new observations of two galaxies from the dawn of time show black holes that have grown far faster than the stars surrounding them. These monsters are so huge that they should not have had enough time or matter to reach such a scale so quickly. This finding breaks the co-evolution rule that has guided astronomy for decades. It suggests that the first black holes were either born massive or had a way to gorge themselves on gas at impossible speeds.
Life After the Quasar: Overmassive Black Holes and Remnant Ionised Bubbles in and Around Two z~6.6 Galaxies
arXiv · 2605.00763
Supermassive black holes (SMBH, $M_{\rm{BH}} > 10^8 M_\odot$) powering luminous quasars already exist one billion years after the Big Bang, yet their connection to their star-forming host galaxies, their relation to the general galaxy population and their contribution to Reionisation remains deeply enigmatic. JWST is finding numerous Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in high-redshift galaxies with black hole masses that appear to be over-massive compared to their host's stellar mass, but rarely as ma