{"id":26483,"date":"2024-02-19T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T16:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=26483"},"modified":"2024-02-18T17:43:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T22:43:00","slug":"eso-record-breaking-quasar-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=26483","title":{"rendered":"ESO: Record-breaking quasar identified"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Brightest and fastest-growing: astronomers identify
\nrecord-breaking quasar<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This artist\u2019s impression shows the record-breaking quasar J059-4351, the bright core of a distant galaxy that is powered by a supermassive black hole. Using ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, this quasar has been found to be the most luminous object known in the Universe to date. The supermassive black hole, seen here pulling in surrounding matter, has a mass 17 billion times that of the Sun and is growing in mass by the equivalent of another Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole ever known.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using the European Southern Observatory\u2019s (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.<\/p>\n

The black holes powering quasars<\/a> collect matter from their surroundings in a process so energetic that it emits vast amounts of light. So much so that quasars are some of the brightest objects in our sky, meaning even distant ones are visible from Earth. As a general rule, the most luminous quasars indicate the fastest-growing supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n

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,<\/em><\/p>\n

says Christian Wolf, an astronomer at the Australian National University (ANU) and lead author of the study published today in Nature Astronomy<\/em>. The quasar, called\u00a0J0529-4351, is so far away from Earth that its light took over 12 billion years to reach us.<\/p>\n