Astronomers find monster black hole devouring a sun's-worth of matter every day
Scientists have spotted the brightest and fastest-growing quasar ever seen — a monster black hole that's devouring a sun's-worth of material every day. The brightly burning object, named J0529-4351, weighs between 17 billion and 19 billion solar masses and is located 12 billion light-years from Earth — meaning it dates to a time when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old. Related: James Webb telescope discovers the oldest, most distant black hole in the universe Black holes are born when giant stars collapse in on themselves, and they grow by devouring all they encounter — be it gas, dust, stars, planets or other black holes. Friction can cause the material spiraling into the maws of these gluttonous space-time ruptures to heat up, which emits light that can be detected by telescopes, turning them into so-called active galactic nuclei (AGN). The most extreme AGNs are quasars — supermassive black holes that are billions of times heavier than...