This colossal cosmic entity has a mass three billion times that of the Sun and engulfs matter the size of Earth every second.
The newly found supermassive black hole, named J1144, is about 500 times larger than Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, and has recently been captured in the first-ever image. A superheated plasma disk surrounding the massive void also emits light over 7,000 times brighter than our entire galaxy.
Australian astronomers uncovered the universe using data from the Southern Sky Survey SkyMapper at the Australian National University (ANU), aiming to map the entire southern sky. Researchers described the process of pinpointing the location of the supermassive black hole as finding a “very large needle in a haystack.”
Simulating the horrifying black hole devouring matter every second.
Christopher Onken, the team leader and an astronomer at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, stated, “Astronomers have been hunting for objects like this for over 50 years. They’ve found thousands of fainter ones, but this astonishingly bright one has been sitting there unnoticed.” The newly formed black hole devours matter to an extent that nothing, not even light, can escape. Co-author Samuel Lai, an astronomer at ANU, explained, “The orbits of planets in our Solar System would be entirely within it.”
Black holes cannot be seen as they do not emit any light. However, astronomers can detect them due to their strong gravitational pull, which draws matter towards the event horizon at such intensity that the matter is transformed into super-hot plasma. The researchers are confident that this is a record that will never be surpassed.
The researchers mentioned that the brightness of the black hole is to such an extent that even amateur astronomers can observe it with a powerful telescope.
The research team is currently striving to determine why the supermassive black hole is voraciously consuming matter in an unusual manner. Scientists suspect that a cataclysmic cosmic event is responsible for the birth of this enormous void. Onken stated, “It’s possible that two large galaxies have collided, funneling all the matter into the black hole to feed it.”
Co-author Christian Wolf, an ANU astronomer and the leader of SkyMapper, remarked, “This black hole is very different, but I don’t believe we will find another one like it. Essentially, we have run out of places for objects like these to hide.”
However, some researchers predict that there may be up to 40 trillion black holes in the universe, accounting for approximately 1% of the total mass in the cosmos, suggesting the possibility of an even more colossal black hole lurking somewhere.