Monstrous black hole that devours stars every two days

In their study, the scientists used the ESA’s recently published star catalog to confirm that the bright object is indeed a black hole. The star catalog is the result of the work of the Gaia probe, ktora has been in orbit since late 2013.

The new data includes the positions, distance ratios and motions, brightness and colors of more than a billion stars, as well as precise measurements of asteroids in our Solar System and stars and other objectoin beyond our own Galaxy. For more on this topic, see New star catalog with precise measurements of more than a billion of them.

The monstrous black hole observed has a mass of about 20 billionoIn the masses of our sun. – This black hole is growing so rapidly that it shines thousands of times brighter than the entire galaxy. This is due to the large amount of gasoin and dustoin consumed by it every day, whichore cause high friction and high temperature – said Christian Wolf, an astronomer at Australian National University and first author of the new study, whichore appeared on “Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia”.

– If this monsteror sat in the center of our Milky Way, would appear 10 times brighter than the full moon. It would be an incredibly bright star, ktora with its brilliance would outshine almost all the stars in the sky – added.

Fortunately „this monsteror” is located very far away, about 12 billionoin light years from us. But if it were actually located in the center of the Milky Way, it would likely make life on Earth impossible, due to the enormous amount of X-rays, ktore is emitted when a voracious black hole satisfies itsoj appetite.

The supermassive black hole has been designated as QSO SMSS J215728.21-360215.1. Researchers estimate it is growing at a rate of about one percent per million years.

Wolf and its wspohe researchers spotted the light with the SkyMapper telescope located at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. They then used a new catalog compiled by the Gaia probe. With it, they made the necessary measurementsow confirming that it is probably a supermassive black hole.

– We do not know how it grew so fast in the early period of the Universe‘s existence. Now we’re on the hunt for even faster-growing black holes – noted Wolf. He added that distant black holes such as this one can pomoc scientists in the study of the early Universe.

Thanks to new giant telescopes, whichore are currently under construction, scientists will roalso were able to use bright, distant objectsow, such as this voracious black hole, to measure the expansion of the Universe.