The most "hungry" black hole in the universe has been discovered.

Astronomers have just discovered a bizarre black hole that is devouring gas from a nearby star at a rate 10 times faster than previously thought.

The P13 black hole is absorbing a mass equivalent to 100 quadrillion hot dogs every minute. Photo: ICRAR

The aforementioned "hungry" black hole, nicknamed P13, is located in the outer reaches of the galaxy NGC7793, approximately 12 million light-years from Earth. Researchers discovered that black hole P13 is absorbing a mass equivalent to 100 quadrillion hot dogs per minute.

Dr. Roberto Soria, an expert at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) working at ICRAR's facility at Curtin University (Australia), said that because gas is drawn toward a black hole, it is very hot and bright. Scientists initially noticed P13 because it was much brighter than other black holes, but had previously thought that this black hole was simply larger than usual.

"We've long believed that the maximum velocity for a black hole to swallow gas and produce light depends closely on its size. So it's understandable that people conclude P13 is larger than the typical, less luminous black holes we observe in our own galaxy—the Milky Way," Dr. Soria explained.

When Soria and his colleagues from the University of Strasbourg (France) measured the mass of P13, they discovered that it was actually quite small, despite being at least a million times brighter than the Sun. Only then did the research team realize just how much material this black hole was absorbing.

According to expert Soria, P13 orbits a supermassive "gas-donating" star, more than 20 times heavier than our Sun. Scientists observed that one side of the star is always brighter than the other, as it is illuminated by X-rays emitted from the P13 black hole. Therefore, the star appears brighter or dimmer as it moves around P13.

This allowed the research team to measure the time it takes for the black hole and the "gas-donating" star to orbit each other (approximately 64 days) and to model the velocities of the two celestial bodies as well as the shape of their orbits.

According to the Daily Mail