Black hole discovered 12 billion times larger than the Sun

Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole, likened to a space monster, 12 billion times larger than the Sun.

Simulation of a quasar and a large black hole. Photo: Shanghai Astronomical Observatory

According to the Washington Post, scientists named this object SDSS J0100+2802. It is about 12.8 billion light years away from us and formed about 900 million years after the Big Bang.

SDSS J0100+2802 is 12 billion times larger than the Sun, and the quasar (a luminous object that spawns from a supermassive black hole) is 420 trillion times brighter. It can even be detected with a small telescope. Chinese scientists, along with colleagues in Chile and the United States, studied it and obtained a higher-resolution image.

"How could such a large black hole have appeared at the very beginning of the universe? We don't have any theory to explain this," said Xue-Bing Wu, an expert at Peking University. Black holes can suck in surrounding matter at extremely high speeds. However, the radiation from quasars should have limited this accumulation process before a large black hole could form.

Experts say they will use the quasar as a “lighthouse” to help identify other cosmic objects. “This is an opportunity to learn more about objects between the Milky Way and ours,” Wu said.

According to VnExpress