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3 supermassive black holes in a single galaxy
Scientists think most large galaxies have supermassive black holes at their hearts. And, earlier this year, astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy said they’ve detected the first pair of supermassive black holes at the center of a galaxy … two monster black holes so close they could merge. Now, on August 12, 2026, astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics announced that – for the first time – they’ve detected three supermassive black holes in one galaxy.
Two of these black hole triplets lie near one another and the center of their galaxy. They are only 620 light-years apart. One of these two is the most massive of the three at 80 million solar masses (a single solar mass is a unit of measurement in astronomy). The other central black hole is the least massive with just 600,000 solar masses. The third black hole looms on the galaxy’s outskirts, about 5,500 light-years from the center, with 2 million times the mass of our sun.
The galactic home of these three black holes is called J0148-4214. It lies 12.5 billion light-years away from us, in the very early universe. So we’re seeing it as it appeared about 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang, the initiation of our universe.
The researchers published their peer-reviewed study in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on August 12, 2026.
Black holes in the early universe
These early-universe black holes are hungry! All three are actively accreting, or consuming nearby material in a disk. That’s unlike the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, and other galaxies near us in space. Their older supermassive black holes appear more quiescent.
So the researchers say these early active black holes can provide insight into how our universe grew into what we see today.
Hannah Übler of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics led the new triple-black-hole study. Übler said:
This is the first evidence of three active black holes in a single galaxy in the distant universe.
It suggests that processes in the early universe were efficient at bringing massive black holes together, setting the stage for the massive black hole mergers we expect to detect with future gravitational wave observatories.
Scientists have long thought that black hole mergers in the early universe are what allowed supermassive black holes to grow so big so quickly. And now, finding three supermassive black holes in one galaxy strengthens that theory.
Seeing the 3 supermassive black holes
So these three black holes have 80 million, 2 million and 6 thousand times the mass of our sun. And while you might think the most massive of the three is the greediest gobbler of nearby gas and dust, analysis suggests that the smallest of the black holes is actually accreting (gaining material) at the fastest rate. In fact, the hungry little black hole is:
… exceeding the maximum accretion rate predicted by basic theories of black hole growth (the Eddington limit).
So … another mystery!
How did the scientists spot these three black holes? They used the Webb space telescope’s NIRSpec instrument to examine the galaxy’s spectral signature. This breakdown in the wavelengths of light allowed them to see hydrogen moving at high velocities. Without this tool, the scientists would not have been able to see the black holes as separate objects. So they likely would only have identified one black hole in the galaxy.
A merger in the making
The data from Webb allowed the scientists to identify three black holes and discover their masses. Co-author Giovanni Mazzolari of MPE said:
The JWST data allowed us not only to identify the three black holes, but also to estimate their masses, accretion rates, and the stellar mass of the galaxy. We find a total stellar mass of about 1.3 billion suns, and the black holes represent a significant fraction of that.
And the scientists say the central two black holes are on a collision course. They expect them to merge within the next few hundred million years. Co-author Roberto Maiolino of the University of Cambridge said:
These results are extremely exciting. They suggest that black hole merging may be an additional, fast route for their rapid growth in the early universe.
What about the third black hole? Astronomers have two scenarios. It could someday merge with the central black holes. Or it could have already been kicked out of the inner circle during a previous merger of black holes.
Bottom line: For the first time, astronomers have discovered three supermassive black holes in a single galaxy in the early universe. The two central black holes may merge in a few hundred million years.
Source: BlackTHUNDER: Evidence of three massive black holes in a z ? 5 galaxy
Via MPE