Astronomers discover universe's fastest-growing and most luminous object to date

www.eso.org...

Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have characterised a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind, but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies and they are powered by supermassive black holes. The black hole in this record-breaking quasar is growing in mass by the equivalent of one Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole to date.

We have discovered the fastest-growing black hole known to date. It has a mass of 17 billion Suns, and eats just over a Sun per day. This makes it the most luminous object in the known Universe,” says Christian Wolf, an astronomer at the Australian National University (ANU) and lead author of the study published today in Nature Astronomy. The quasar, called J0529-4351, is so far away from Earth that its light took over 12 billion years to reach us.

Quasars are extremely luminous active galactic nuclei commonly known as AGN. To make it simple quasars are nothing more than supermassive black holes located at the center of galaxies and surrounded by enormous amounts of gas, dust, plasma, particles, orbiting the black hole in the form of accretion disks. Because of the gravitational attraction from this enormous black hole this material falls gradually towards it and it heats up resulting in the emission of vasts amounts of light. Quasars have luminosities which are thousands of times greater than entire galaxies like our own.

Let's look at the numbers that are mind boggling! This quasar has a mass of 17 billion Solar masses and is 500 trillion times more luminous than our sun. It is surrounded by the largest accretion disk known to astronomers and the largest so far in the universe with a diameter of about 7 light-years. It's growing in mass by the equivalent of one solar mass per day from the material that is falling towards it, that's around 2 × 10^30 Kg in mass!

a reply to: Venkuish1

Plot twist it's getting bigger because its heading towards us fast...

Are black holes colapsed quasars or not yet ignited quasars?

Cool find, the numbers are mind-blowing, i found that the visuals putting them into relation to the moon/earth really brings across the incredible size of the celestial bodies.
For me scaling helped tremendously to grasp the distances involved.

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: Venkuish1

Plot twist it's getting bigger because its heading towards us fast...

Are black holes colapsed quasars or not yet ignited quasars?

Cool find, the numbers are mind-blowing, i found that the visuals putting them into relation to the moon/earth really brings across the incredible size of the celestial bodies.
For me scaling helped tremendously to grasp the distances involved.

Quasars are supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies called active galactic nuclei and they are extremely luminous because there are massive amounts of material orbiting them (mainly gas). The gas is heated up due to the gravitational pull and it emits vasts amounts of light.

a reply to: Venkuish1

That's crazy... If I understand right they basically are suns burning on the surface of a black hole?

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: Venkuish1

That's crazy... If I understand right they basically are suns burning on the surface of a black hole?

These are supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies.

The reason for the emission of vasts amounts of light is the gas that surrounds the black hole. It gets heated up and emits light.

a reply to: Terpene

Accretion Disc. This explains them:

svs.gsfc.nasa.gov...

originally posted by: Venkuish1

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: Venkuish1

That's crazy... If I understand right they basically are suns burning on the surface of a black hole?

These are supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies.

The reason for the emission of vasts amounts of light is the gas that surrounds the black hole. It gets heated up and emits light.

This is a lot to wrap my head around. Like Terpene, I imagine Suns. I was wondering, if WE are in a black hole?
I dont mean to derail your amazing poste but I really am interested as I am writing a fictional short story. Hear me out, and definitely guide me, there is SO MUCH information from various angles on this site, and they get all jumbled up in my head!
1) We are in a black hole
2) The Hopi legends tell of remembering when there was no moon and when it arrived.
3) The moon is hollow. Lizzad People inhabit moon.
4) Negative energy creates negative emotions, fear/hate/greed/jealousy lust, which is good as Lizzad people consume our fear (Monsters Inc. collected children's screams)
5) "Small window of opportunity " - Klaus Schwab aka Lizzad People's henchman.
6) The more people who "awaken/ become enlightened" and repel the dark forces, the faster/we (atoms [Adam's & Eve's] electrons) propel the helix, which is our solar system, out of this black hole.

I'm trying to cram all "CT's" into one story justified by the science we know and the science we don't know!

Not on drugs, I swear but maybe they would help!!!!
Thank you and great OP

When I was a kid they told us that Not
even light could escape a black hole.
"most luminous object, black hole" ?

um! head lighs geting brighter!
could that be a car coming towards you?

a reply to: Scratchpost

The light comes from the Accretion Disc which is outside of the Black Holes event horizon.

a reply to: Venkuish1

So no fusion happening like within a sun? Is it like electrons being forced to change energy state releasing photons or just an exothermic reaction?

a reply to: UnRepentantHarlequin27

Check the treads by an ominous poster called the hidden hand... IIRC one was called "window of opportunity" or something.
it's right along what you're looking for. But careful there it's a deep rabbit hole...

a reply to: Venkuish1

What if it's the Hopkins radiation leaking from the blacknhole that's exciting the gas? A giant cosmic fluorescent light bulb...

originally posted by: Scratchpost
When I was a kid they told us that Not
even light could escape a black hole.
"most luminous object, black hole" ?

um! head lighs geting brighter!
could that be a car coming towards you?

Pay a little more attention to what has been said. I have repeated it a few times in this thread.

The following link from NASA may help but it's exactly what it has been discussed here.

science.nasa.gov...

Black holes don’t emit or reflect light, making them effectively invisible to telescopes. Scientists primarily detect and study them based on how they affect their surroundings:

Black holes can be surrounded by rings of gas and dust, called accretion disks, that emit light across many wavelengths, including X-rays.

A supermassive black hole’s intense gravity can cause stars to orbit around it in a particular way. Astronomers tracked the orbits of several stars near the center of the Milky Way to prove it houses a supermassive black hole, a discovery that won the 2020 Nobel Prize

a reply to: Oldcarpy2

Every black hole has this disc I assume, but not all of them emit light?

Heat makes the gas light up, ok... I don't quite understand this part, is it just burning as in exothermic reaction which i somehow find odd, or how is the light emitted exactly?

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: Oldcarpy2

Every black hole has this disc I assume, but not all of them emit light?

Heat makes the gas light up, ok... I don't quite understand this part, is it just burning as in exothermic reaction which i somehow find odd, or how is the light emitted exactly?

It’s not the gas heating up as it heads towards the event horizon. It’s being emitted from the ‘black hole’

NASA is a lying dog faced pony soldier

a reply to: Dalamax

Isn't what you're referring to what they call the hopkins radiation? This seems to be something else...

a reply to: Venkuish1

Thank you for an interesting (and beautifully explained) news item.

...and I'm glad the thing is so far away. I don't want it munching on dear old Sol.

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: Oldcarpy2

Every black hole has this disc I assume, but not all of them emit light?

Heat makes the gas light up, ok... I don't quite understand this part, is it just burning as in exothermic reaction which i somehow find odd, or how is the light emitted exactly?

There is no nuclear fusion in accretion disks. This happens at the core of stars where temperature and pressure are extremely high for nuclear fusion to take place. The process by which accretion disks emit light is called thermal radiation.

en.wikipedia.org...

Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation generated by the thermal motion of particles in matter. Thermal radiation is generated when heat from the movement of charges in the material (electrons and protons in common forms of matter) is converted to electromagnetic radiation. All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation. At room temperature, most of the emission is in the infrared (IR) spectrum.[1]: 73–86  Particle motion results in charge-acceleration or dipole oscillation which produces electromagnetic radiation.

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: Venkuish1

What if it's the Hopkins radiation leaking from the blacknhole that's exciting the gas? A giant cosmic fluorescent light bulb...

No wonder they have Hodgkin's lymphoma, with all that sunburn in their blacnhole after swallowing so much stuff, it's enough to give anyone gas, excited or not (makin' hay where the suns don't shine)!

a reply to: chr0naut

Good thing you added that edit, i wouldn't be able to determine what you tried to convey

I definetly was, thanks for noticing...