Astronomers
have
uncovered
something
surprising
while
looking
13
billion
years
into
the
past
using
the
James
Webb
Space
Telescope
(JWST).
They’ve
spotted
supermassive
black
hole-powered
quasars
that
appear
to
be
hanging
out
in
isolation.
This
is
odd
because,
according
to
current
theories,
black
holes
need
to
be
surrounded
by
a
lot
of
material
to
grow
quickly.
But
these
quasars
seem
to
be
in
areas
with
little
to
no
fuel
to
support
such
growth,
leaving
scientists
scratching
their
heads.
Unusual
Quasar
Fields
A
team
led
by
Anna-Christina
Eilers,
an
assistant
professor
of
physics
at
MIT,
studied
five
of
the
earliest
known
quasars.
While
some
were
in
environments
packed
with
matter,
others
were
almost
empty,
which
was
unexpected.
Typically,
quasars
need
dense
surroundings
to
grow
their
black
holes,
but
these
particular
ones
seem
to
be
growing
without
the
usual
supply
of
gas
and
dust.
As
Eilers
put
it,
“It’s
difficult
to
explain
how
these
quasars
grew
so
massive
if
there’s
nothing
nearby
to
feed
them.”
Challenges
to
Black
Hole
Growth
Theories
In
the
present
universe,
supermassive
black
holes
sit
at
the
center
of
galaxies
and
feed
on
surrounding
matter,
creating
the
bright
phenomenon
we
know
as
quasars.
The
newly
discovered
quasars,
however,
appear
to
lack
the
necessary
resources.
This
raises
a
big
question:
how
did
these
black
holes
grow
so
fast
in
such
a
short
time?
Right
now,
the
existing
theories
about
black
hole
formation
don’t
seem
to
explain
what
the
JWST
is
showing.
The
Next
Steps
This
discovery
raises
more
questions
than
it
answers.
The
team
thinks
it’s
possible
that
some
of
these
seemingly
“empty”
quasar
fields
might
actually
be
hiding
material
behind
cosmic
dust.
They’re
now
planning
to
tweak
their
observations
to
see
if
they
can
find
what’s
been
missed.
What’s
clear
is
that
we’re
still
far
from
understanding
how
these
supermassive
black
holes
came
to
be
so
early
in
the
universe’s
history.
