Named J1144, the newfound supermassive black hole dwarfs the supermassive black hole at the centre of Milky Way, Sagittarius A* by 500 times.
Scientists have been on the hunt for such supermassive objects for over half a century and have now finally found one black hole brighter and growing faster than any to have been in the 9 billion years. The discovery was made by astronomers from Australia with the help of the SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey project of Australian National University, which has the entire Southern Hemisphere sky mapped out.
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1. 3 billion times more massive than the sun
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This massive cosmic entity is an unimaginable 3 billion times more massive than the sun and consumes matter at a fearsome rate, chunks the size of Earth every second.
2. 500 times bigger than Milky Way's SMBH
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Named J1144, the newfound supermassive black hole dwarfs the supermassive black hole at the centre of Milky Way, Sagittarius A* by 500 times.
3. 7,000 times brighter than our galaxy
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Its unprecedented brightness means that over 7,000 times light comes out of it than emitted by all of our humble galaxy Milky Way.
4. ‘Finding a very large, unexpected needle in the haystack’
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That is how one of the researchers described the discovery of the supermassive black hole. Lead researcher and astronomer at ANU, Christopher Onken said that astronomers have been on the hunt for such objects for over 50 years. “They have found thousands of fainter ones, but this astonishingly bright one had slipped through unnoticed,” he said in a statement. (In pic: Astronomers Christopher Onken and Samuel Lai)
5. Event horizon compared to our solar system
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The unbelievable rate at which it consumes matter would embarrass other similar supermassive blackholes. Its event horizon is so exceptionally wide that the orbits of all over solar system’s planets would be easily encompassed in it, co-author and another ANU astronomer Samuel Lai said.
Photos: ANU, NASA, Pixabay
