A massive black hole has been discovered in the early universe, emitting a beam of energy directly toward us.

Astronomers have discovered a new supermassive black hole that is shooting a gigantic beam of energy directly towards Earth. This black hole, classified as a blazar, has a mass 700 million times that of the Sun and is located 12.9 billion light-years away from us. This is the oldest known blazar, emitting its energy beam straight at us. The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reports Live Science.

Some supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies are referred to as quasars. These black holes possess such immense mass and gravitational pull that they heat the surrounding material in their accretion disk to hundreds of thousands of degrees Celsius. As a result, quasars emit vast amounts of electromagnetic radiation. The magnetic fields of quasars convert this high-energy radiation into two jets that shoot out into space, perpendicular to the black hole's accretion disk on both sides. These jets can extend far beyond the galaxies that house the quasar. Some quasars direct one of their jets straight towards Earth, and such supermassive black holes are called blazars. Like quasars, they are considered among the brightest objects in the universe.

Astronomers have identified a new blazar, named J0410−0139, located 12.9 billion light-years away from us in the early universe. This is the oldest blazar known to astronomers, existing 900 million years after the Big Bang. With the help of this blazar, astronomers can learn more about how the first supermassive black holes formed and how they evolved over billions of years.

To date, astronomers have discovered fewer than 3,000 blazars, all of which are closer to us than J0410−0139. Prior to this discovery, the most distant and oldest blazar was PSO J0309+27, which was found five years ago and is located 12.8 billion light-years from Earth.

Scientists believe that at such a vast distance from Earth, there are likely many more supermassive black holes that either do not emit jets or do not direct these jets towards Earth. Therefore, researchers intend to continue searching for these objects from such an early period in the universe's history. Astronomers are particularly eager to discover new blazars that existed less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang.