Astronomers have found a new record for the brightest body in the universe after discovering a monstrous quasar that shines roughly 500 trillion times brighter than the sun.
The supermassive black holes lurking in the hearts of most galaxies are thought to grow larger by feasting on vast disks of gravitationally bound interstellar material. This process releases a huge amount of radiation, some of which is cast out into the universe in the form of visible light. In the case of extremely active black holes known as quasars, the glow triggered by the cosmic gluttony can be sufficient to outshine the combined light of every star in the host galaxy that it is embedded in.
In a newly published study, scientists have detailed the nature of a record-breaking gargantuan quasar - known simply as J0529-4351 - which, according to the authors, is the most luminous body ever found in the history of our cosmos.
“We have discovered the fastest-growing black hole known to date,” said Australian National University astronomer Christian Wolf, who co-authored the new study appearing in the journal Nature Astronomy. “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."
The quasar’s light is thought to have travelled for some 12 billion years before being intercepted by Earthbound telescopes. The researchers believe that the cosmic light show occurred as J0529-4351 fed on a colossal disk of interstellar material measuring seven light-years from end to end. Placed in the context of our solar system, such a disk would occupy a space the equivilant to 15,000 times the gulf between the sun and the planet Neptune, making it the largest structure of its kind in the known universe.
J0529-4351 has actually been captured in astronomical surveys dating back to the 1980s, but had been mistaken as a star by the machine-learning tools used to scan the datasets due to its extreme brightness, which is the equivalent to 500 trillion times that of our sun.
In 2023, scientists discovered J0529-435’s true identity as a distant quasar using data from the Siding Spring observatory in Australia. Further observations using a cutting edge instrument mounted on the ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile were later used to confirm the quasar’s status as the most luminescent body discovered in the universe to date. The authors of the study describing J0529-435 believe that the quasar will represent a promising target for the next generation of telescopes and instruments that are due to come online over the next decade.
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer
Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
