How did supermassive black holes get so big so early? There are two main models for that, and JWST just got a huge boost for the one that suggests they can form via a direct collapse of gas clouds. How did the researchers pull the first observations of a potential birth of a SMBH? Finding out in this interview.

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🟣 Guest: Dr. Pieter van Dokkum

https://physics.yale.edu/people/pieter-van-dokkum

📜 The JWST Might Have Found the First Direct-Collapse Black Hole

https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-jwst-might-have-found-the-first-direct-collapse-black-hole

📜 The ∞ Galaxy: A Candidate Direct-collapse Supermassive Black Hole between Two Massive, Ringed Nuclei

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/addcfe

00:00 Intro

02:18 Supermassive black holes

11:57 The Discovery

21:38 Implications for cosmology

34:17 Current obsessions

42:35 Final thoughts

📺 VIDEO VERSION

https://youtu.be/JoqjFqakszI

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