Brightest Object Ever Discovered—500 Trillion Times More Luminous Than Sun

Astronomers have discovered the brightest object ever observed in the universe.

Astronomers discovered a quasar, which is the "brightest of its kind" and the "most luminous object ever observed," using the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), a statement said.

Quasars are galactic cores that emit extremely bright light. At their center lies a supermassive black hole. As dust and gas falls into the black hole, electromagnetic radiation is released, creating this luminous light.

This record-breaking quasar is also growing rapidly, as is typical with the brightest quasars in the galaxy. The new study detailing the find, published in Nature Astronomy, reports that it is growing by the size of one sun per day and is over 500 trillion times brighter than the sun. It has been dubbed J0529-4351.

The lead author of the team described the discovery to Newsweek as "possibly most hellish place in the Universe," due to its fast-moving clouds, extreme temperatures and because "there are lightning bolts of cosmic size discharging everywhere."

However, the incredible light being emitted was also noteworthy.

"We have discovered the fastest-growing black hole known to date. It has a mass of 17 billion Suns, and eats just over a Sun per day. This makes it the most luminous object in the known Universe," Christian Wolf, an astronomer at the Australian National University (ANU) and lead author of the study, said in a summary of the findings.

Astronomers report that this quasar is so far away from Earth that it took over 12 billion years for us to see it. On Earth, quasars resemble stars.

"All this light comes from a hot accretion disc that measures seven light-years in diameter —this must be the largest accretion disc in the Universe," ANU Ph.D. student and co-author Samuel Lai added in the summary.

This quasar has been visible since 1980. But despite it being there for a while, astronomers did not realize the light was a quasar until now.

There was also a fair amount of debate about whether this was quasar at all. At first, astronomers thought it must be a star as it was simply too bright for a normal quasar.

However using the a 2.3-meter telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, they discovered it was a quasar after all.

Using an even bigger telescope, the ESO's VLT, astronomers then discovered it was no normal quasar, but the brightest one ever to be discovered. This telescope was specially made to measure the size of black holes, even ones that are very far away.

"It is a surprise that it has remained unknown until today, when we already know about a million less impressive quasars. It has literally been staring us in the face until now," co-author Christopher Onken, an astronomer at ANU, said in a summary.

Researching quasars and black holes is important for our understanding of the early universe. They can hold a variety of clues into how it came to be, and how galaxies formed and evolved.

"Personally, I simply like the chase," Wolf said in the summary. "For a few minutes a day, I get to feel like a child again, playing treasure hunt, and now I bring everything to the table that I have learned since."

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