The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted the earliest known galaxy to ever be "quenched" — suddenly and mysteriously halting its star formation — and scientists think the supermassive black hole in its center could be to blame.
The galaxy, called GS-9209, formed most of its stars during a hyperactive burst of activity between 600 million and 800 million years after the Big Bang. Then, more than 12.5 billion years ago, it suddenly stopped. The researchers published the James Webb Space Telescope discovery on Jan. 26 on the preprint server arXiv, so it has yet to be peer-reviewed.
