# How long after the big bang can the first black hole appear ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 3, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-after-the-big-bang-can-the-first-black-hole-appear/736559 "2015-11-03T22:34:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-after-the-big-bang-can-the-first-black-hole-appear/736559/1 "2015-11-03T22:34:29Z")
What do the current universe models predict would be allowable time for the first blackhole after the bing bang ? Here’s a [13 billion](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-06-15/astronomers-have-discovered-oldest-black-holes-ever-detected-in-space) year old black holes, but does physics permit even older black holes ? Also, if I plot the cumulative blackholes formed since big bang, versus time from big bang, will I get a straight line with a constant slope, a decay curve or a growth curve or some other curve ? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2015, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-after-the-big-bang-can-the-first-black-hole-appear/736559/2 "2015-11-03T23:00:43Z")
I have no answer for you, but I gotta say that “… the bing bang …” is a great typo. In a few million years we’ll experience the walla walla ding dong. Glad I won’t live to see it; it’ll be pretty high energy. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-after-the-big-bang-can-the-first-black-hole-appear/736559/3 "2015-11-03T23:56:32Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > What do the current universe models predict would be allowable time for the first blackhole after the bing bang ? Here’s a [13 billion](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-06-15/astronomers-have-discovered-oldest-black-holes-ever-detected-in-space) year old black holes, but does physics permit even older black holes ? > > Also, if I plot the cumulative blackholes formed since big bang, versus time from big bang, will I get a straight line with a constant slope, a decay curve or a growth curve or some other curve ? > > Thanks I think that current theories allow for some black holes to form during the big bang [Primordial black hole - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primordial_black_hole) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-after-the-big-bang-can-the-first-black-hole-appear/736559/4 "2015-11-04T01:00:19Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I think that current theories allow for some black holes to form during the big bang [Primordial black hole - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primordial_black_hole) Right, although I believe that’s purely speculative and primordial black holes haven’t actually been detected. The OP article seems a bit inconclusive about whether it’s talking about black holes that resulted from the collapse of stars or black holes that formed in some other way, concurrently with the evolution of galaxies – and there are several theories for the formation of supermassive black holes in galaxy centers that aren’t related to stellar collapse. But it probably wouldn’t make much difference in terms of the age of the earliest possible black holes other than primordial ones, since the 700-800 million years after the Big Bang that the article talks about is in line with the age of [first-generation stars](http://news.sciencemag.org/space/2015/06/astronomers-spot-first-generation-stars-made-big-bang) that formed around that time, about 800 million years after the Big Bang. These were likely very massive and burned so fiercely that they only lasted a few million years before going supernova with the remnants collapsing to form the first black holes. Hence one of the oldest objects observed in our galaxy, [HE 1523-0901](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HE_1523-0901) at an estimated 13.2 billion years old, is believed to actually be a _ **second** _ generation star. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-after-the-big-bang-can-the-first-black-hole-appear/736559/5 "2015-11-04T01:59:33Z")
Some cyclical cosmologies have black holes possibly surviving from a pre-big bang state, meaning they existed before the big bang. Of course this must be regarded as very speculative. The usual model of primordial black holes has them forming during the first few thousand years of the Universe, but other models of formation have them forming within the first nanosecond of the Universe. However the evidence for primordial black holes is currently flimsy to non-existent. There is however ample evidence for black holes formed by stellar collapse. The first stars would’ve formed several hundred million years after the big bang (a study earlier this year put the earliest formation at a bit more than 0.5 billion years). The first stars would’ve been very massive; exactly how massive though is a matter of dispute, but massive enough so that there lifetime would be measured in the lower tens of millions of years and massive enough to form black holes. So it would be fair to say that the first black holes were formed before the Universe was 600 million years old. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-after-the-big-bang-can-the-first-black-hole-appear/736559/6 "2015-11-04T03:07:05Z")
It’s even plausible (though now generally disfavored, with current evidence) that the entire Universe is one big black hole. If that be the case, then the Big Bang _is_ the formation of a black hole.