Australian astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole that absorbs as much material in a day as the sun does. This black hole already has a mass of about 17 billion suns. around it This is the hungriest black hole humans have ever seen, according to a team of astronomers from the Australian National University. The hole, named J0529-4351, is rapidly expanding and has almost reached its limit in terms of the amount of material it can accumulate. This supermassive black hole was discovered at noon in the universe about 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. This is a very early point in the history of the universe. That light took her 12 billion years to reach Earth. This means that this black hole’s massive mass is equivalent to 17 to 19 billion times the mass of the Sun. But this is the least black hole humanity has ever recorded. The rate at which a black hole consumes matter around it may provide insight into its enormous size. A team of astronomers estimated that the black hole is growing at a rate of about 370 solar masses per year. This is very close to the Eddington limit, the maximum stable velocity at which a black hole can “eat.” Supermassive black holes are usually located at the center of a galaxy, a huge gravitational mass. Such a black hole could be millions or billions of times more massive than the Sun. Scientists aren’t exactly sure how they got to this point. Much smaller black holes (tens of solar masses) can form by the direct collapse of the core of a massive star as it dies, and can grow through collisions with other black holes. However, supermassive black holes are too large for such formation mechanisms to be effective, especially early in the history of the universe.

source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02195-x