Astronomers make big discoveries about black holes and ancient space rocks

This week, space scientists shared two major findings that give us new clues about the universe’s past. First, researchers used the powerful James Webb Space Telescope to weigh a black hole located a staggering 10 billion light-years away. Unlike active black holes, which glow brightly as they swallow gas and dust, this one was dormant—meaning it wasn’t feeding and was harder to spot. But thanks to the telescope’s sharp vision and a natural trick of gravity called gravitational lensing, scientists could measure its mass by watching how its gravity sped up nearby stars.Meanwhile, in a lab on Earth, a team of scientists examined a meteorite found in the Sahara Desert. Inside, they discovered traces of an ancient protoplanet that likely orbited the sun over 4. 5 billion years ago. The space rock contained a rare mineral that could only have formed under extreme pressure, suggesting it came from a planet-sized object. This challenges old ideas about how planets like Earth and Mars formed, hinting that our solar system once had more planetary neighbors than we thought. These discoveries remind us how much we still don’t know about space. The black hole’s data could help explain how galaxies and black holes grow together over time. And the meteorite proves that even tiny fragments from space can rewrite history books about our solar system’s violent early years.