The discovery of a 12.7bn light-year distant supermassive black hole has challenged astronomers' understanding of star and galaxy formation. NASA's Chandra X-Ray observatory spotted the object, which is generating energy at the rate of twenty trillion suns, at the heart of a quasar formed less than a billion years after the big bang.

Astronomers Daniel Schwartz and Shanil Virani of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered the quasar, known as SDSSp J1306. They found that its X-ray spectrum is a near perfect match to nearer, and hence older (or at least longer lived) quasars. Meanwhile, optical measurements suggest the quasar is a billion times more massive than our sun. Their results have been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

"[The] results seem to indicate that the way supermassive black holes produce X-rays has remained essentially the same from a very early date in the Universe," said Schwartz. "This implies that the central black hole engine in a massive galaxy was formed very soon after the big bang."

This is the second so-called "early epoch" supermassive blackhole to be discovered. In August this year scientists from the UK and from Caltech reported discovering a similar quasar at a distance of 12.8bn light years using the XMM-Newton X-ray satellite. They found essentially the same result for the X-ray spectrum as the Smithsonian scientists have just announced.

Astronomers now plan to use the Chandra X-ray observatory to hunt for quasars even further back in the history of the universe. ®

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