Overview
- A Science paper published Friday reports that Andrew Newman’s team measured a dormant black hole of about 6 billion solar masses at the center of galaxy MRG-M0138 at redshift ≈2.
- The team used JWST NIRSpec integral-field spectroscopy together with strong gravitational lensing to map stellar motions and apply the local‑universe stellar‑dynamical technique at cosmological distance.
- The host galaxy and its central black hole are both quiescent, a finding that supports the idea that rapid early black hole growth could have helped shut down star formation in the densest galaxies.
- Researchers are already analyzing additional JWST targets and say forthcoming wide-area lensing catalogs from Euclid and Roman plus higher‑resolution follow-up from ELTs like the Giant Magellan Telescope will be needed to build a statistical high‑redshift census and confirm whether this system is typical.
- This result fills a key observational gap because dormant black holes are hard to find without accretion light, and extending stellar dynamics to z≈2 offers a direct way to test models of black hole formation and galaxy co‑evolution.