A team of astronomers using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea has found the most distant -- and therefore oldest -- black hole so far discovered in the universe.

The team announced their find yesterday at the annual conference of the Canadian Astronomical Society in Ontario.

The black hole is nearly 13 billion light-years away from Earth, meaning its light has been traveling almost since the birth of the universe about 13.7 billion years ago.

"What we are seeing is very close to the beginning of the universe," said Christian Veillet, CFHT executive director. "We're seeing the universe when it was young."

Future observation of the black hole will help scientists learn more about the early evolution of the universe.

The previous oldest-known black hole is 200 million light-years closer.

The discovery comes about midway through a five-year project called the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey. High-z refers to a high red shift or Doppler shift, characteristic of objects that are moving away very fast. The same effect makes the tone of a train whistle deepen as the train passes.

Black holes are invisible because their gravity prevents light from escaping. But their presence is betrayed by quasars, which appear as very bright stars but are actually energy from gases being squeezed by the black hole, according to current theory.

Using this approach, the astronomers have already discovered four new black holes, and Veillet anticipates they will discover 10 to 15 more by the end of the survey.

Previously, there were only 10 known quasars.

Scientists are able to determine the distance of a quasar by measuring the wavelength of its emission.

Using an imaging instrument called the MegaCam on the telescope, astronomers have identified other objects that could be quasars that are awaiting wavelength analysis.