Fastest-growing black hole with mass of 3 billion suns discovered in Universe, say astronomers

A black hole, which seems to be the fastest-growing in the Universe, has been discovered, say astronomers. It consumes the mass of around one Earth every second. In total, it has a mass of 3 billion suns. With the help of a 1.3-metre telescope SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey in Coonabarabran, New South Wales, the astronomers spotted an extremely bright quasar, a luminous object, which is powered by this supermassive black hole. This object has been named, J114447.77-430859.3 or J1144 (short). It is 7,000 times more luminous than the whole light of the Milky Way.

“The supermassive black hole was more or less halfway across the universe. The light that we’re seeing from this growing black hole has been travelling to us for about 7 billion years”, Dr Christopher Onken of the Australian National University, who is the lead researcher of the study, told the Guardian.

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J1144 has been found to be the most luminous quasar in the last nine billion years of cosmic history, said scientists. There are other similar sized black holes “but they all tend to be much earlier in the history of the universe where the mergers between galaxies was much more common”, Onken added.

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The research has not yet been peer-reviewed till now but has been published as a preprint. It has also been submitted to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

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(With inputs from agencies)

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