The oldest known black hole formed more than 13.3 billion years ago

The body and its surroundings make up one of the little red dots seen by the Webb telescope

A sphere representing a black hole sits in the middle of a glowing gas cloud. The donut-shaped cloud is bright yellow towards the center and red towards the outer edge.

The James Webb Space Telescope spied the earliest confirmed black hole (central sphere in this illustration). It’s probably surrounded by dense gas, which might alter the light emitted by material feeding the growing celestial body.

Erik Zumalt/University of Texas at Austin

The oldest confirmed black hole formed when the universe was a mere infant, within 500 million years of the Big Bang, researchers report.