Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2026

40 ter the Big Bang, and not only is it hosting a supermassive black hole, but the black hole is growing rapidly − far faster than we would expect in such a galaxy at this early time. This challenges our understanding of black hole and galaxy formation in the early Universe and opens up new avenues of research into how these objects came to be.” The team ana- lysed the galaxy's spectrum, which O ver its first three years, Webb's surveys of the early Universe have turned up an increasing number of small, ex- tremely distant, and strikingly red objects. These so-called Little Red Dots (LRDs) remain a tantalising mys- tery to astronomers, despite their unexpected abundance. The discovery in CANUCS-LRD-z8.6, made possible by Webb’s excep- tional capabilities, has assisted in this hunt for answers. Webb’s Near- Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) en- abled researchers to observe the faint light from this distant galaxy and detect key spectral features that point to the presence of an accret- ing black hole. Roberta Tripodi, lead author of the study and a researcher of the University of Ljubljana FMF, in Slovenia and INAF − Osservatorio As- tronomico di Roma, in Italy, ex- plained: “This discovery is truly re- markable. We’ve observed a galaxy from less than 600 million years af- A feasting supermassive black hole in the early Universe by NASA/ESA/CSA Bethany Downer T his image shows a portion of the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5 +2223, as seen by Webb’s Near-Infra- red Camera (NIRCam). With Webb’s excellent sensitivity to infrared light and the hours of exposure time com- bined in this image, distant galaxies (red colours) are brought out of the darkness. Other galaxies glow strongly from the abundance of light they radiate. [ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Rihtarši č (University of Ljubl- jana, FMF), R. Tripodi (University of Ljubljana, FMF)]