‘A paradigm change’: black hole spotted that may have been created moments after big bang

The observations focus on a ‘little red dot’ known as QSO1 dating back more than 13bn years. Photograph: JWST/Nasa/Esa/CSA; NIRCam image processing: Lukas Furtak/Rachel Bezanson

An ancient and “nearly naked” black hole that astronomers believe may have been created in the first fraction of a second after the big bang has been spotted by the James Webb space telescope.

If confirmed as a so-called primordial black hole, a theoretical class of object predicted to exist by Stephen Hawking but never before seen, the discovery would upend prevailing theories of the universe.