Three giant black holes discovered in a galaxy from the dawn of time

Astronomers have discovered three actively feeding black holes inside a single galaxy more than 12.5 billion light-years away, revealing a remarkable scene from the universe’s infancy. Two of the black holes are separated by just 620 light-years and should eventually merge, while a third lurks farther away. One weighs an astonishing 80 million suns, and another is growing faster than conventional theories predict.

Three giant black holes discovered in a galaxy from the dawn of time. Other distant galaxies are shown in the background, and few stars in the foreground. The finding, made by an international research team led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), offers a rare glimpse of how enormous black holes grew and interacted during the universe’s earliest stages.

The black holes are located in a galaxy known as J0148-4214. All three are actively accumulating matter, which spirals toward them through surrounding disks of gas and other material. Because the galaxy is so distant, its light has traveled through space for about 12.5 billion years before reaching Earth.