Black hole 12bn times more massive than sun is discovered

Scientists name new ‘object’ SDSS J0100+2802 and say it is 12.8bn light years from Earth and was formed just 900m years after the Big Bang

 

Artist’s impression of a supermassive black hole at the centre of a distant quasar. Scientists believe they have discovered one whose mass is 12 billion times that of our sun’s. 

Photograph: Zhaoyu Li/Shanghai Astronomical/Peking University/PA

A monster black hole powering “the brightest lighthouse in the distant universe” has been discovered that is 12bn times more massive than the sun, scientists have revealed.

The extraordinary object is at the centre of a quasar - an intensely powerful galactic radiation source - with a million billion times the sun’s energy output.

Welcome to Laniakea: Galactic Super-cluster where our Milky way resides in + video

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2742446/Welcome-Laniakea-3D-map-super-cluster-galaxies-contains-Milky-Way.html#ixzz3CtdMLbDr 

It may not be stamped in your passport, but everyone on Earth is now officially a citizen of Laniakea.

That is the name scientists have given the gigantic super-cluster of galaxies that contains our own Milky Way, which is revealed in a stunning new 3D animation.

The word means 'immeasurable heaven' in Hawaiian - an appropriate description for a structure 500 million light years across that contains 100,000 galaxies and the mass of a hundred quadrillion suns.

Word means 'immeasurable heaven' in Hawaiian 

Structure is 500 million light years across 

Contains 100,000 galaxies and the mass of a hundred quadrillion suns

Around Laniakea are four neighbouring superclusters known as Shapley, Hercules, Coma and Perseus-Pisces 

First supercluster to have its size mapped by astronomers. 

Milky Way's Huge Black Hole to Gobble Gas Cloud Soon

by Nola Taylor Redd, SPACE.com contributor   |   January 23, 2014 07:11am ET

A compilation of Swift telescope observations of the center of the Milky Way, where a supermassive black hole lurks. Credit: Natalie Degenaar View full size image

A giant gas cloud is set to spiral into the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's core in the next few months, and scientists should get a great view of the dramatic celestial action.