SPACE
The brightest black hole ever discovered devours a Sun’s worth of matter every day
WORDS BEN TURNER
An artist’s impression of a bright quasar
Scientists have spotted the brightest and fastest-growing quasar ever seen, a monster black hole that’s devouring a Sun’s worth of material every day. The brightly burning object, named J0529-4351, weighs between 17 and 19 billion solar masses and is located 12 billion light years from Earth, meaning it dates to a time when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old. Black holes are born when giant stars collapse in on themselves, and they grow by devouring all they encounter – be it gas, dust, stars, planets or other black holes. Friction can cause the material spiralling into the maws of these gluttonous space-time ruptures to heat up, which emits light that can be detected by telescopes, turning them into so-called active galactic nuclei (AGN).