Black holes are the fastest growing and brightest. An international astronomy team led by Dr Christopher Onken has published the discovery of the fastest growing black hole in the universe nine billion years ago, consuming matter the size of the Earth every second. It is also 7,000 times brighter than the entire Milky Way galaxy.
They named the black hole SMSS J11447.77-430859.3. Or called J1144 for short from the analysis of spectroscopic data. (Spectroscopic – measuring any quantity (as a function of both wavelength and frequency), this supermassive mass is three billion times greater than the Sun and more than 500 times more massive than the supermassive black hole Sgr A* at the center of the Milky Way that was photographed just a month ago.
“It’s like an unexpectedly large needle that exists and hides in the grass,” says Dr. Onken. “Astronomers have been searching for objects like this for over 50 years. They have found thousands of faint lights, but this wonderfully bright object has slipped by unnoticed.”
Even black holes are non-luminous objects. But what makes J11447 so bright is the powerful gravitational pull that rips matter from the stars and the stars that pass around it into a concentrator of light that is transmitted across the cosmos to Earth. Also known as quasars by astronomers, they are one of a class of objects known as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) – the compact regions in the center of galaxies. which has a higher luminous condition than the normal electromagnetic spectrum)
Scientists determined that something that shines that much and still comes from a distant place must have been caused by an extremely powerful object. And the only one in the known universe is supermassive black hole “This black hole is extremely unusual. I don’t believe we will ever find another black hole like this,” said Associate Professor Christian Wolf.
While Dr. Onken added that “Nothing is as bright as J1144, but it will help us understand a more complete picture of the black hole’s growth stages and the physical mechanisms behind events such as intergalactic collisions. Rare gigantic size or something special about the environment around the black hole, including the black hole itself.”
Searched and edited by Vitit Borompichaichatkul
First published June 2022.
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