When you hear the term “black hole” you probably don’t picture something bright.
However, brightness is just what the fastest-growing black hole ever recorded is creating, according to researchers from Australian National University who recently published a study in the Nature Astronomy journal. They said it is the most luminous object in the known universe.
“It’s 500 trillion times brighter than our sun,” said lead author Christian Wolf, an associate professor at the university. That bright glow is growing as the black hole devours “the equivalent of one sun every day,” and currently has a mass equal to around 17 of our solar system’s suns, said a press release.
NASA describes black holes as the “most mysterious cosmic objects,” that are not actually holes but huge concentrations of matter packed into small spaces. Light can’t escape beyond a black hole’s event horizon due to the strong gravity within it. Light that forms the accretion disc around it is material that the black hole will soon devour.
According to Wolf, the recently discovered black hole looks like a massive magnetic storm – 7 light years across – with “lightning everywhere and winds blowing so fast they would go around Earth in a second.”
Researchers first detected the fast-growing and extra-luminous black hole with Australian National University’s Siding Spring Observatory telescope, located in Coonabarabran. They then used one of largest telescopes in the world – the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope – to confirm their discovery. Research into the black hole was also done in collaboration with the ESO, University of Melbourne and the Sorbonne Université in France, said the press release.
“It’s a surprise it remained undetected until now, given what we know about many other, less impressive black holes. It was hiding in plain sight,” said co-author Dr. Christopher Onken. Professor Rachel Webster from the University of Melbourne noted that the light reached 12 billion years to reach us.