An international team of astronomers have discovered the largest ever black hole that is as massive as 12 billion times larger than our sun and 420 trillion times more luminous as compared to the sun.
The mass of the ancient black hole, which has powered the brightest object in the early universe, is 12.8 billion light years away. It is the most luminous object that has been ever seen in the early space.
The black hole is also from only 900 million years after the well-known big bang.
The scientists spotted the black hole at the centre of a quasar that has pumped out a million billion times of the energy of the Sun.
One of the team scientists Dr Fuyan Bian, of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University (ANU), said the incredible discovery has challenged the previous theories related to the formation of black holes and their further growth in the early universe.
The team in the researcher paper wrote, “A cosmic light that defies convention. It was even detectable with a relatively small telescope, though researchers in China did have to ask for help from astronomers in Chile and the United States to get a higher-resolution look. Forming such a large black hole so quickly is hard to interpret with current theories.”
The complete research report has been published under the name “Black hole feedback in the luminous quasar PDS 456,” in the February edition of journal Science Magazine.
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