Peixin Zhu

One night in 2008, something in the core of the distant galaxy J1047+5907 flared sharply in X-rays. That's how the neighborhood of a supermassive black hole sometimes behaves: a scorching cloud of gas above it suddenly blasts out a powerful stream of light. The black hole itself emits nothing, but its surroundings can light up like a neon sign.

In the deep field of JWST, among thousands of galaxies, astronomers zoomed in on the source JADES-GS 209777 – and saw a cosmic chick. Its "shell" is a thick cocoon of gas and cosmic dust that long hid the growing black hole at its center. But at a redshift of 3,711 (1,8 billion years after the Big Bang), the shell began to crack.