A team of astronomers has made a groundbreaking discovery, identifying what could be the brightest object in the universe—a quasar with a voracious black hole at its core, consuming the equivalent of a sun each day. This extraordinary quasar outshines our sun by a staggering 500 trillion times. The colossal black hole propelling this distant cosmic phenomenon is an astounding 17 billion times larger than our sun, as revealed by an Australian-led team in the journal Nature Astronomy.
While appearing as a mere dot in images, scientists envision the quasar as an intense and tumultuous realm. The swirling disk surrounding the quasar's black hole, composed of luminous, swirling gases, and material from engulfed stars, resembles a celestial hurricane.
Lead author Christian Wolf of the Australian National University describes this quasar as "the most violent place we know of in the universe." Originally spotted by the European Southern Observatory as an unidentified object (J0529-4351) during a sky survey in 1980, it was initially misclassified as a star. Only last year did researchers confirm its quasar identity through observations from telescopes in Australia and the Chilean Atacama Desert.
Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University, who was not part of the study, expresses excitement about the quasar's discovery, emphasizing that it was "hidden in plain sight" and misclassified as a star for years.
Additional observations and computer modeling unveiled that the quasar devours the equivalent of 370 suns annually, roughly one sun per day. The black hole's mass ranges between 17 to 19 billion times that of our sun, and further research is necessary to comprehend its growth rate. Positioned 12 billion light-years away, this quasar has existed since the universe's earliest days, emphasizing its significance in unraveling cosmic mysteries.
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