Our universe was born 13.8 billion years ago. All celestial objects we know were then formed one after another in the long river of time. Theoretically, massive compact objects would require a very long time to appear. Recently, astronomers have discovered a massive quasar that was formed only 670 million years after the birth of the universe.

A Quasar is a distant galaxy with a supermassive blackhole at its core. The super powerful accretion activity of the blackhole releases an extremely strong electromagnetic radiation, which can almost penetrate the entire universe. The newly discovered quasar is called J0313–1806. The supermassive blackhole at its core is about 1.6 billion times more massive than the Sun. In 2017, astronomers had found another blackhole that grew to 800 million times the mass of the Sun in the early universe. In addition to breaking the record, this new finding posts a great challenge for us to learn what kind of mechanism can be accounted for the formation of such a large object within a short period of time. This unsolved mystery would require more theoretical astronomers to answer for us.

More information: https://public.nrao.edu/news/quasar-new-distance-record/