ESA - European Space Agency

For decades, we assumed galaxies came first 🌌

Stars form, collapse, and slowly build black holes over billions of years. But just found a black hole so massive, so ancient, and so isolated that it couldn’t have grown that way. It was born big. And it may have predated the galaxy around it entirely.

The clue was in how the gas moves around it. Perfect, elegant Keplerian motion, the same way planets orbit our Sun, telling us that almost all the mass in that galaxy is concentrated in the black hole itself. In nearby galaxies, black holes make up a tiny fraction of the total mass. This one accounts for two thirds of it.

Scientists believe this might not be a rare exception. There could be thousands of these out there, quietly challenging everything we thought we knew about the beginning of the Universe.

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🎞️ , ESA, , L. Furtak (Ben-Gurion University), R. Maiolino (), F. D’Eugenio (Cambridge), I. Juodžbalis (Cambridge), H. Übler (MPE), C. Marconcini (), BY 4.0
Image processing: A. Pagan; NASA & ESA; NASA/ and ; ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser); ESA/NASA; ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser);
📸 NASA, ESA, CSA, L. Furtak (Ben-Gurion University), R. Maiolino (Cambridge), F. D’Eugenio (Cambridge), I. Juodžbalis (Cambridge), H. Übler (MPE), C. Marconcini (University of Florence); CC BY 4.0
Image processing: A. Pagan

New research reveals vast clay deposits at our Rosalind Franklin rover landing site, pointing to a once water-rich Mars and strengthening the search for signs of past life.

Target launch: 2028

Read more: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/ExoMars_rover_targets_vast_bed_of_clay_in_search_for_life

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