Universe's Brightest Beacon: Record-Breaking Quasar Feasts on a Sun a Day
May 21, 2024
Astronomers discovered the brightest object ever observed—a quasar powered by a supermassive black hole consuming the equivalent of one sun every single day.
Astronomers have pinpointed the most luminous object ever observed in the universe—a quasar so intensely bright it outshines our Sun by 500 trillion times. This celestial beacon, designated J0529-4351, is powered by the fastest-growing black hole yet discovered, an insatiable cosmic monster that consumes the equivalent of one Sun every single day. This discovery challenges our understanding of black hole formation and growth in the early cosmos.
The Engine of a Cosmic Powerhouse
At the heart of J0529-4351 lies a supermassive black hole with a mass of approximately 17 billion times that of our Sun. Its immense gravitational pull ensnares a swirling vortex of gas and dust known as an accretion disk. As this matter spirals inward, friction heats it to unimaginable temperatures, causing it to emit an extraordinary amount of light. The sheer scale of this disk is staggering—it measures seven light-years in diameter, roughly 15,000 times the distance from the Sun to Neptune.
A Discovery Decades in the Making
- Initial Misidentification: Data from the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Schmidt Southern Sky Survey in 1980 initially flagged J0529-4351 as a star, not a quasar.
- Re-evaluation with Gaia: It wasn't until data from the Gaia satellite mission suggested the object was too bright to be a typical star that astronomers took a closer look.
- Spectrograph Confirmation: Final confirmation came using the X-shooter spectrograph on the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, which definitively identified it as the most luminous quasar known.
We have discovered the fastest-growing black hole known to date. It is a surprise that it has remained unknown until today, when we already know about a million less impressive quasars.
Universe's Brightest Beacon: Record-Breaking Quasar Feasts on a Sun a Day - FAQs
A quasar (quasi-stellar object) is the extremely bright and distant active galactic nucleus (AGN) of a young galaxy, powered by a supermassive black hole consuming vast amounts of matter.
The quasar J0529-4351 is 500 trillion times more luminous than our Sun. All this light comes from a hot accretion disk that has a diameter of seven light-years.
It was initially mistaken for a star in 1980s sky survey data. It was later re-examined using data from the Gaia satellite and confirmed as a quasar using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.
This discovery provides new insights into how supermassive black holes grow and influence their host galaxies. It also challenges existing models of cosmic evolution in the early universe.