Scientists have detected the brightest black hole ever recorded, with a brightness of 10 trillion times that of the Sun. It was likely caused by a clash of magnetic fields or an instability in a disk of gas orbiting the hole.
The flare was detected in 2018 at the Palomar Observatory in California. It grew in intensity for three months, then faded over the years. Scientists believe the flare was caused by the collapse of a massive star that passed too close to the black hole and was torn apart by its gravity.
The study was published in Nature Astronomy. The flare occurred approximately 10 billion light-years away from a supermassive black hole, making it the most distant such event observed. It happened when the Universe was still “young.”
Scientists remind us that almost every large galaxy, including the Milky Way, has a supermassive black hole at its center; however, the process of their formation remains a mystery.
