A galaxy billions of light years from Earth houses what may be the most massive black hole in the universe, equivalent to cramming the full mass of a small galaxy into a single object

Scientists have tapped into gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics to confirm the existence of a black hole with 36 billion solar masses.

Astronomers have identified the most distant—and by extension earliest—black hole ever seen. Located in the galaxy CAPERS-LRD-z9, the supermassive black hole likely formed 13.3 billion years ago, barely 500 million years after the big bang.