Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2024

12 MAY-JUNE 2024 ASTRO PUBLISHING The black holes powering quasars collect matter from their surround- ings in a process so energetic that it emits vast amounts of light. So much so that quasars are some of the brightest objects in our sky, meaning even distant ones are visi- ble from Earth. As a general rule, the most luminous quasars indicate the fastest-growing supermassive black holes. “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 lu- by ESO − Bárbara Ferreira U sing the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), as- tronomers have characterised a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind, but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies and they are powered by supermassive black holes. The black hole in this record- breaking quasar is growing in mass by the equivalent of one Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole to date. Astronomers identify the most luminous quasar ever observed