Astronomers have identified a supermassive black hole that eclipses the equivalent of the Sun every day at the center of the most luminous quasar ever discovered, according to a study published in Nature.
“We’ve discovered the fastest-growing black hole ever discovered. It has the mass of 17 billion suns and eats only one sun every day,” explained lead author Christian Wolff, an astronomer at the Australian National University (ANU). The study in a press release from the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Invisible by definition, a supermassive black hole illuminates the core of the galaxy that harbors it through its activity. We call this nucleus a quasar, and it is one of the “brightest objects in the known universe” observed by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT located in Chile), according to Christian Wolff.
It took 12 billion years for its light to reach the VLT instruments, making it possible for it to exist at the earliest age of the universe – 13.8 billion years old.
The light from J0529-4351, as it was named, was discovered in the 1980s, recalls a study published Monday. But automated analysis of data from the Gaia satellite mapping the galaxy matched it with a very bright star.
Last year, researchers using the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia and then the VLT’s X-Shooter instrument identified it as indeed a quasar.
The supermassive black hole in it attracts masses of matter, which are accelerated to low speeds, emitting the equivalent of more than 500 billion suns of light, an ESO press release said.
The existence of such a massive and luminous object in the early universe is “difficult to understand”, notes the study, which recalls the discovery of similar quasars in recent years.
Their existence presupposes the rapid growth of supermassive black holes each time, which theory still struggles to describe.
A black hole is thought to be born after a star explodes at the end of its life, the core of which then collapses onto it. It can grow by feeding on surrounding objects attracted by its gravitational field.
Scientists are wondering about the process at work that allowed a black hole to become supermassive in a relatively short time in the young universe.
Published at 1:16 pm on February 21, AFP
