The brightest known object in the universe, a quasar 500 times brighter than the sun, is “hiding in plain sight,” researchers say.
Australian scientists have discovered a quasar powered by the fastest-growing black hole ever discovered. Its mass is about 17 billion times that of the solar system’s sun, and it devours energy equivalent to one sun every day.
It takes more than 12 billion years for light from celestial bodies to reach Earth.
Scientists from the Australian National University first discovered it using a 2.3-meter telescope at the university’s Siding Spring Observatory in Coonabarabran, New South Wales. They then confirmed the discovery using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope, which has an 8-meter-long primary mirror.
The findings, by ANU researchers in collaboration with the European Southern Observatory, the University of Melbourne and France’s Sorbonne University, have been published in Nature Astronomy.
Lead author Christian Wolf, associate professor at the Australian National University, said it is the most luminous object known in the universe and its incredible growth rate means “a huge release of light and heat”, and he Doubtful its record will ever be broken. Beaten.
The light is emitted from an “accretion disk” seven light years in diameter. This disk is where matter is dragged into and around the black hole before crossing the event horizon.
When this material hits other materials, it creates large amounts of light and heat.
“It looks like a giant geomagnetic storm cell with temperatures up to 10,000 degrees Celsius, lightning everywhere, and winds blowing so fast they can circle the Earth in a second,” Wolf said.
“This storm cell is seven light-years across, which is 50% longer than the distance from our solar system to Alpha Centauri, the next star in the Milky Way.”
Co-author Dr Christopher Onken said it was surprising it had gone undetected for so long and that it was “hiding in plain sight”.
Wolfe said he had two different feelings about the discovery.
“Part of it is a bit of a shock and awe moment, imagining this hellish place… imagining these conditions, nature does produce something more extreme than we’ve ever imagined before,” he said.
“The other one is a bit of cheeky joy – we found it! Nature doesn’t make this easy, it’s like ‘Ah, there you are!’.”
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This article has been modified to correct the size of the main mirror of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, which is 8 meters instead of 39 meters as previously stated.
