[아하! 우주] Drinks per second … A huge black prize is in sight

▲ Photo with black holes

A rapidly growing black hole swallowed the weight of the earth one second per second. Recently, a team from the Australian National University (ANU) announced that the fastest-growing supermassive black hole ever found in the Centaurus constellation was found.

The age of this black hole is estimated to be 9 billion years, which is explained by the hardest numbers to imagine in the human head. First, this black hole is 3 billion times the weight of our Sun, so it is 500 times larger than the black hole Sagittarius A* in the middle of the Milky Way. Most importantly, it emits bright light in the process of random covering the surrounding matter, emitting enough energy to make it shine 7,000 times higher than the light emitted by all the stars in our galaxy. Therefore, the ANU research team named this black hole as quasar SMSS J114447.77-430859.

The SMSS J114447.77-430859.3 black hole was examined by the Australian research team ANU. This is the area of ​​the blue circle.

There is something more interesting. Other black holes similar in size to J1144 stopped growing billions of years ago, but these black holes are still growing, sucking things around them. In response, the research team drew a line that the reason for J1144’s rapid growth is not clear, but know the results from space history.

“Perhaps two large galaxies collided, providing a wealth of material for this black hole. In the process, the black hole has also grown significantly, “said Christopher Onken, researcher, author of the newspaper.” However, if you look at 7 billion years, or half the age of the universe, you won’t see black holes growing at the speed of the J1144, ”he added.

▲ Image of Sagittarius A* (Star A), a large black hole in the center of our galaxy. The black part in the middle is the black hole and the shadow where the black hole is, and the bright part of the ring is the light which is reflected by the force of the black hole.

On the one hand, the black hole, which also appears to be the subject of a science fiction film, was created in the final stages of the evolution of a very large star and represents the region of space time. which sucks everything with a powerful pull. . . Most importantly, black holes cannot be seen directly because they absorb light. Experts, however, confirm its existence by emitting a powerful liquid called jets and blowing large amounts of matter from its surroundings through powerful gravity.

The results of this study were published in the latest issue of the Publication of the Australian Astronomical Society.

Written by Park Jong-ik, journalist pji@seoul.co.kr