ENGLAND, Cambridge, Jan 19, (Agencies): Astronomers from an international team have identified the oldest black hole, dating back to a time when the universe was just 400 million years old, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature.

Jan Schulz, an astrophysicist at the Kavli Institute of Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, noted that this discovery pushes back the date of the oldest massive black hole by "about 200 million years."

The study, co-authored by Schulz, is expected to contribute to the development of new theoretical models explaining the presence of such phenomena in the young universe over 13 billion years ago.

The black hole's mass is estimated to be 1.6 million times that of our sun. Like all black holes, it is invisible, absorbing surrounding matter and emitting a considerable amount of light in its vicinity.

The discovery of the black hole was facilitated by the light emitted, revealing the galaxy at its core, named "GN-z11." Initially, GN-z11 was identified in 2016 as the oldest galaxy observed by the Hubble Space Telescope until the James Webb Space Telescope, operational in 2022, revealed the black hole within GN-z11.

This newly discovered black hole dates back to 430 million years after the Big Bang, during the cosmic dawn, marking the period when the first stars and galaxies emerged at the end of the so-called "dark" ages.