CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A team of astronomers led by Australian researchers has made a groundbreaking discovery, possibly identifying the brightest object in the universe. This extraordinary finding is a quasar, which houses a black hole at its core that is growing at an unprecedented rate, consuming the equivalent of a sun every day.
The quasar shines an astonishing 500 trillion times brighter than our sun, making it a record-breaking object in the realm of astrophysics. The black hole at the heart of this quasar is more than 17 billion times more massive than our sun, painting a picture of a truly colossal celestial phenomenon.
Despite its seemingly minute appearance in images, this quasar is a ferocious and violent entity. The rotating disk around the black hole resembles a cosmic hurricane, with the luminous swirling gas and other matter from gobbled-up stars creating a scene of unimaginable power and energy.
Lead author Christian Wolf of Australian National University described the quasar as “the most violent place that we know in the universe,” emphasizing the sheer intensity and magnitude of this discovery. The European Southern Observatory initially spotted this object, known as J0529-4351, during a sky survey in 1980, but it was initially mistaken for a star. It wasn’t until last year that it was identified as a quasar, thanks to observations by telescopes in Australia and Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Yale University’s Priyamvada Natarajan, uninvolved in the study, expressed excitement about the quasar, highlighting its initial misclassification as a star and the subsequent groundbreaking discovery. Further analysis has revealed that this quasar is consuming the equivalent of 370 suns a year, leading to a mass of the black hole that is estimated to be 17 to 19 billion times that of our sun. The quasar itself is located 12 billion light-years away, providing a window into the early days of the universe and offering unique insights into its evolution.
This extraordinary finding sheds light on the sheer power and scale of celestial phenomena, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the universe and opening new avenues of exploration and research for astronomers and astrophysicists around the world.