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“We needed Webb to find this remarkably distant galaxy and Chandra to find its supermassive black hole,” said Akos Bogdan of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) who leads a new paper in the journal Nature Astronomy describing these results. “We also took advantage of a cosmic magnifying glass that boosted the amount of light we detected.” This magnifying effect is known as gravitational lensing.

Bogdan and his team found the black hole in a galaxy named UHZ1 in the direction of the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, located 3.5 billion light-years from Earth. Webb data, however, has revealed the galaxy is much more distant than the cluster, at 13.2 billion light-years from Earth, when the universe was only 3% of its current age.

Then over two weeks of observations with Chandra showed the presence of intense, superheated, X-ray emitting gas in this galaxy – a trademark for a growing supermassive black hole. The light from the galaxy and the X-rays from gas around its supermassive black hole are magnified by about a factor of four by intervening matter in Abell 2744 (due to gravitational lensing), enhancing the infrared signal detected by Webb and allowing Chandra to detect the faint X-ray source.

This discovery is important for understanding how some supermassive black holes can reach colossal masses soon after the big bang. Do they form directly from the collapse of massive clouds of gas, creating black holes weighing between about 10,000 and 100,000 Suns? Or do they come from explosions of the first stars that create black holes weighing only between about 10 and 100 Suns?

“There are physical limits on how quickly black holes can grow once they’ve formed, but ones that are born more massive have a head start. It’s like planting a sapling, which takes less time to grow into a full-size tree than if you started with only a seed”, said Andy Goulding of Princeton University. Goulding is a co-author of the Nature Astronomy paper and lead author of a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that reports the galaxy’s distance and mass using a spectrum from Webb.

Bogdan’s team has found strong evidence that the newly discovered black hole was born massive. Its mass is estimated to fall between 10 and 100 million Suns, based on the brightness and energy of the X-rays. This mass range is similar to that of all the stars in the galaxy where it lives, which is in stark contrast to black holes in the centers of galaxies in the nearby universe that usually contain only about a tenth of a percent of the mass of their host galaxy’s stars.

The large mass of the black hole at a young age, plus the amount of X-rays it produces and the brightness of the galaxy detected by Webb, all agree with theoretical predictions in 2017 by co-author Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University for an “Outsize Black Hole” that directly formed from the collapse of a huge cloud of gas.

“We think that this is the first detection of an ‘Outsize Black Hole’ and the best evidence yet obtained that some black holes form from massive clouds of gas,” said Natarajan. “For the first time we are seeing a brief stage where a supermassive black hole weighs about as much as the stars in its galaxy, before it falls behind.”

The researchers plan to use this and other results pouring in from Webb and those combining data from other telescopes to fill out a larger picture of the early universe.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope previously showed that light from distant galaxies is highly magnified by matter in the intervening galaxy cluster, providing part of the motivation for the Webb and Chandra observations described here.

The paper describing the results by Bogdan’s team appears in Nature Astronomy, and a preprint is available online.

The Webb data used in both papers is part of a survey called the Ultradeep Nirspec and nirCam ObserVations before the Epoch of Reionization (UNCOVER). The paper led by UNCOVER team member Andy Goulding appears in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The co-authors include other UNCOVER team members, plus Bogdan and Natarajan. A detailed interpretation paper that compares observed properties of UHZ1 with theoretical models for Outsize Black Hole Galaxies is forthcoming.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

New studies strengthen link between marijuana use and heart attack, heart failure and stroke.

Two new preliminary studies on recreational marijuana and health reinforce existing evidence that regular use has a negative impact on heart and brain health, according to the American Heart Association.

The first report, which was based on data from a major study involving more than 150,000 people from all walks of American society that examined the relationship between lifestyle, biology and the environment, found that consumption daily marijuana increased the risk of developing heart failure by approximately one-third compared to non-users. A research team from Medstar Health, a nonprofit health provider in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, found that among 156,999 healthy people they followed, those who used marijuana had a 34 percent higher risk of develop heart failure during the 45 months of the study, compared to those who reported that they had never used marijuana. This risk was the same regardless of age, sex, or smoking history, and findings from the study, part of the National Institutes of Health's All of Us research program, suggested that coronary artery disease was the pathway through which daily marijuana use could lead to heart failure.

The total amount of debt has increased exorbitantly, and no one knows at what rates!

Argentina's central bank said China has authorized a free-access currency swap line totaling $6.5 billion, part of a broader deal the country has been using to help defend the embattled local peso.

The agreement with China helps Argentina increase its depleted foreign currency reserves while it is going through a major economic crisis, with annual inflation exceeding 130% and the central bank's dollar reserves reaching negative levels.

Wednesday's measure effectively increases the amount that Argentina can access as part of the swap line formalized in early 2023.

"China has increased the amount and instead of 5 billion dollars we are receiving 6.5 billion dollars," said Alberto Fernández, from the Asian country, where he is on an official trip. "

Every time we went through difficult times, Xi Jinping's government gave us its support," Fernández added. "This is an important step so that production (in argentina) does not stop.

" This is the second line of exchange with China activated during Fernández's presidency. According to an official source from the bank, the total amount of the swap line amounted to 47 billion yuan.

The problem is that it is not said that it is a loan, and it accrues interest that no one knows about.

CÓRDOBA.– During the early hours of today, firefighters managed to contain the fires in the southern area of Punilla, in the province of Córdoba. The only active outbreak is in La Tomita, in the department of Tulumba, in the north. Yesterday was a day of anguish and despair because the heat, the wind rotations and the drought caused the flames to get out of control and take them to the edge of homes in the area of Carlos Paz, San Antonio de Arredondo and Cabalango.

The Secretary of Climate Risk Management of Córdoba, Claudio Vignetta, indicated that around 4 o'clock today the firefighters managed to contain the fire in Punilla. “At 4 o'clock some drops fell. We were working until 6 at El Fantasio, which was busy. “Everything is controlled, with an unstable perimeter,” he described.

In any case, he warned that there are planes flying over to audit the situation and ash guard. The little rain recorded cooled the land somewhat.

Last night the interim mayor of Cabalango, Carla Bruno, ordered the town to be evacuated. The flames caused an environmental disaster, in addition to the anguish and fear of the residents since the fire reached some houses and surrounded the Villa Piren complex. About 11 fire crews were deployed to the scene.

Yesterday afternoon, the most desperate situation was experienced in the vicinity of Villa Carlos Paz, where the flames gained strength and height. “If it weren't for the firefighters and the police, we would all burn. I have never seen anything like that in my life. We managed to put it out with everyone's help. The fire was almost inside my house and surrounded us,” Ana, a neighbor from the Altos del Valle neighborhood, told the media.

At least 800 people were transferred to Tanti, since the flames threatened residents and the density of the air made it impossible to breathe.

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