Supermassive Black Hole at Cosmic Dawn

(15:04) Guest: Xiaohui Fan, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory  Sometimes it takes a fresh pair of eyes to see the unexpected. Researchers at the University of Arizona and the University of Peking in China have discovered a supermassive black-hole at the edge of the known universe, 12.8 billion light years from Earth. Yet these experienced scientists wouldn’t have noticed it if not for the work of students, who saw the anomaly while combing through data their mentors had missed. Their observations challenged standing theories about black hole formation, and prompt new explanations about the early universe.  "You can see it \[Quasar] literally across the universe,” says Fan. "If you traveled to this Quasar and somehow survived, you would see a tremendous amount of light—bright as daylight."