Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2026

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2026 T his image shows the location of galaxy CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 in galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223, as seen by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 is part of a class of small, very distant and strikingly red gal- axies called Little Red Dots (LRDs), which have been spotted in increasing num- bers by Webb’s surveys of the early Universe. It is located in the constellation Leo (the Lion), and is seen by Webb just 570 million years after the Big Bang. [ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Rihtarši č (University of Ljubljana, FMF), R. Tripodi (University of Ljubljana, FMF)] showed gas which had been highly ionised by energetic radiation, and suggested it was rotating quickly around a central source. These fea- tures are key characteristics of an accreting supermassive black hole. The precise spectral data yielded an estimate of the black hole’s mass, revealing it to be unusually large for such an early stage in the Universe, and showed that CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 is compact and has not yet pro- duced many heavy elements — a galaxy at an early stage of its evolu- tion. This combination makes it an intriguing subject for study. Addi- tionally, the Webb spectroscopy al- lowed the team to measure how much energy is emitted at different wavelengths, from which they were able to characterise the galaxy’s physical properties. This allowed them to determine the mass of the galaxy’s stars and compare it with the black hole’s mass. “The data we received from Webb was absolutely crucial,” added Dr. Nicholas Martis, a collaborator from the University of Ljubljana, FMF, who helped analyse the spectrum of the source. “The spectral features revealed by Webb provided clear signs of an ac- creting black hole at the centre of the galaxy, something that could not have been observed with previ- ous technology. What makes this even more compelling is that the galaxy’s black hole is overmassive compared to its stellar mass. This suggests that black holes in the early Universe may have grown much faster than the galaxies that host them.” Astronomers have previously ob- served that the mass of a supermas- sive black hole and its host galaxy are linked: the larger a galaxy grows, the larger its central black hole also becomes. CANUCS-LRD- z8.6 is the most massive host galaxy known at such an early time, yet its central black hole is even more mas- sive than we would expect, defying the usual relation. The result sug- gests that black holes may have formed and started growing at an accelerated pace in the early Uni- verse, even in relatively small galax- ies. “This discovery is an exciting step in understanding the forma- tion of the first supermassive black holes in the Universe,” explained Prof. Maruša Brada č , leader of the group at the University of Ljubljana, FMF. “The unexpected rapid growth of the black hole in this galaxy raises questions about the processes that allowed such massive objects to emerge so early. As we continue to analyse the data, we hope to find more galaxies like CANUCS-LRD- z8.6, which could provide us with even greater insights into the ori- gins of black holes and galaxies.” The team is already planning addi- tional observations with the Ata- cama Large Millimetre/submilli- metre Array (ALMA) and Webb to further study the cold gas and dust in the galaxy and to refine their un- derstanding of the black hole’s properties. The ongoing research into this LRD is poised to answer crucial questions about the early Universe, including how black holes and galaxies co-evolved in the first billion years of cosmic history. As as- tronomers continue to explore the early Universe with JWST, further surprises are expected to emerge, offering an increasingly detailed picture of how the first supermas- sive black holes grew and evolved, setting the stage for the formation of the luminous quasars that light up the Universe today. !