Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) show that supermassive black holes existed before the galaxies that host them. A detailed study of the distant galaxy QS01 found its central black hole has a mass of about 50 million solar masses, nearly matching the galaxy's 75 million solar mass total.
This challenges the previous assumption that black holes grew after their galaxies formed. Instead, it supports theories where black holes originated first, possibly through direct collapse or as primordial black holes.
These findings shed light on a long-standing cosmological question: which came first, galaxies or their supermassive black holes?
