An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5

Understand

Quasars are the most luminous non-transient objects known and as a result they enable studies of the Universe at the earliest cosmic epochs.

• Despite extensive efforts, however, the quasar ULAS J1120+0641 at z=7.09 has remained the only one known at z>7 for more than half a decade.
• Here we report observations of the quasar ULAS J134208.10+092838.61 (hereafter J1342+0928) at redshift z=7.54.
• This quasar has a bolometric luminosity of 4e13 times the luminosity of the Sun and a black hole mass of 8e8 solar masses.