- Jonathan Amos
- science correspondent
Artwork: J0529-4351's bright core is driven by a supermassive black hole
The brightest object ever detected has been discovered in the distant universe.
It's a quasar, the bright core of a galaxy powered by a massive black hole about 17 billion times the mass of the Sun.
The power of this object, known as J0529-4351, was confirmed by observations made with the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
J0529-4351 has actually been recorded in the data many years ago, but its true glory has only recently been recognized.
Christopher Onken, an astronomer at the Australian National University, said: “It's surprising that we didn't know about it until now, given that we already know about a million or so less impressive quasars.” “It has literally been staring at us.” (ANU) Working on VLT observations.
The term quasar is used to describe a galaxy with a highly active and energetic core. The black holes at the centers of these galaxies pull matter towards themselves at incredible speeds.
As this material accelerates around the hole, it tears apart and emits so much light that even distant objects like J0529-4351 can still see it.
It took an astonishing 12 billion years for this quasar's radiation to reach the VLT's detectors.
Everything about the object is amazing.
Scientists involved say the energy released makes the quasar more than 500 trillion times brighter than the Sun.
“All this light comes from a hot accretion disk seven light years across, which must be the largest accretion disk in the universe,” said ANU PhD student and co-author Samuel Rai.
7 light years is about 15,000 times the distance from the Sun to the orbit of Neptune.
