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Most Distant (and Oldest) Supermassive Black Hole Discovered

posted by martyb on Thursday December 07 2017, @04:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the how'd-it-get-that-big? dept.

takyon writes:

Farthest monster black hole found

Astronomers have discovered the most distant "supermassive" black hole known to science.

The matter-munching sinkhole is a whopping 13 billion light-years away, so far that we see it as it was a mere 690 million years after the Big Bang. But at about 800 million times the mass of our Sun, it managed to grow to a surprisingly large size such a short time after the origin of the Universe. The find is described in the journal Nature [DOI: 10.1038/nature25180] [DX].

This relic from the early Universe is busily devouring material at the centre of a galaxy - marking it out as a so-called quasar.

Also at Sky & Telescope.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:02PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:02PM (#606900)

    13 billion light years away, we are seeing it at 690 million years after the big bang and it was 800 million times the mass of our sun at that time. How large is it now??

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:06PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:06PM (#606902) Journal
    Why don't you go over there and weigh it? I dare you!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @06:35PM (#606929)

    https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28647-black-holes-have-a-size-limit-of-50-billion-suns/ [newscientist.com]

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @09:08PM (#606990)

    you are asking about events outside of our lightcone.
    according to my understanding, that is a meaningless question, because the object you are interested in could have interacted with things that we cannot observe at any moment in their history.

    furthermore, if something is outside our lightcone, it does not exist (as far as physics is concerned).