Fastest growing black hole ever discovered: It swallows Earth-size mass every second

An international research team led by Australian National University (ANU) astronomers has discovered a new black hole that is growing much faster than any black hole detected in the past nine billion years. It is reported that the black hole named J1144 swallows an area the size of the Earth every second .

First of its kind

According to the shared data, the black hole, which has a mass equivalent to three billion times the mass of the Sun , emits 7,000 times more light than all the light from the Milky Way. Explaining that telescopes in New South Wales and Cape Town, South Africa were used in the study, the Australian National University reported that other black holes of similar size stopped growing billions of years ago, but this newly discovered black hole still continues to grow.

Saying that they want to know why the black hole is different and that astronomers have been searching for objects like this for more than 50 years, lead researcher Dr. Christopher Onken from the Australian National University said, “ Maybe two large galaxies collided and left a dense mass on the black hole. ” he stated. Also, Onken and his team described the finding as ” looking for a needle in a very large haystack “, despite the black hole’s incredible brightness.

While research is underway on the new black hole, described as a quasar (the bright active galaxy core backed by a black hole with a mass of a million or ten billion Suns), it has a luminosity of 14.5 magnitude only slightly fainter than Pluto when viewed from Earth. It is reported that J1144 can be observed with good telescopes in a very dark area.