The James Webb Space Telescope imaged a pair of ultramassive black holes at the center of a distant galaxy that together weigh about 60 billion times the Sun and have cleared a roughly 3,200-light-year starless core. Webb's mid-infrared observations of NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud reveal dusty ribbons and filaments where dense pockets of dust hide ongoing star formation and embedded protostars. These discoveries show black holes can dominate and evacuate galaxy centers on huge scales while Webb uncovers star formation previously hidden by dust, changing how astronomers trace galaxy and stellar evolution.
