ESO / M. Grain fair
Artist’s impression of a quasar.
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The black hole is 7000 times brighter than the entire Milky Way, and is classified as a quasar.
A new study to be published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia details the discovery of supermassive black hole which is growing at the fastest rate among those that have ever been discovered in the recent Universe — that is, the last nine billion years.
The hole is growing so fast it has a 7000 times stronger brightness than the entire Milky Way and every second that passes, it absorbs an amount of material equivalent to the mass of the Earth.
The discovery was named SMSS J114447.77-430859.3 and an analysis of its properties suggests that the light emitted by the hole must travel for seven billion years to reach us. In total, the hole has a mass 2.6 billion times greater than the Sun and is classified as a quasar.
the hole was hidden in plain sight can even be seen in photos taken in 1901 of the sky, but it has only been discovered now due to its location, as it is 18 degrees above the galactic plane and previous surveys have only gone up to 20 degrees, notes the Science Alert.
With the exception of supernova explosions that emit gamma rays, quasars are the brightest individual objects in the Universe. result from huge acceleration from the absorption of matter by a black hole, it is not the hole itself that glows, but the material that is heated by friction and gravity.
One feature that distinguishes the J1144 is its activity level, since so far the quasars similar in this aspect that have been found are much older, dating to about 13.8 billion years ago. 9 billion years later, this intense activity present in J1144 seems to have calmed down, which makes this black hole a peculiar case.
Scientists are hopeful that this record will not be broken, but the team has already confirmed the Discovery of over 80 quasars, with hundreds of candidates still to be analyzed. Astronomers are so close to completing a complete census of quasars born in the recent Universe.
“None of them are as bright as J1144, but they help paint a more complete picture of how common this fast-growing phase will be, and it helps us understand the physical mechanism behind it,” concludes astronomer Christopher Onken.
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