Scientists claim to have made an amazing discovery in outer space. They have spotted a gigantic black hole that they are claiming to be 12 billion times bigger than the sun. The object, named SDSS J010013.021280225.8 is 12.8 billion light years from Earth.
This monster black hole is at the center of a quasar. Quasars are intensely powerful radiation sources lit by a brilliant glow of surrounded superheated gas that pumps out a million billion times the energy of the sun. Astronomers have discovered over 200,000 quasars dating as far back as 700 million years after the Big Bang.
Though it’s not the biggest black hole that has ever been found, scientists are amazed to have discovered this massive black hole that is astonishingly young. That’s a surprise because black holes grow by vacuuming up gas and stars…a painstakingly slow process that takes billions of years.
The giant black hole appears to have grown to its current enormous size only 900 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe began.
