Supermassive black hole that grows super fast detection. Jaws up an earth in a second.

Astronomers at the Australian National University have discovered a supermassive black hole that is believed to be the fastest growing black hole of the few of the universe’s supermassive black holes discovered so far.

The newly discovered black hole has been named J1144 and the light from this has traveled for around 7 billion light years for us to see. J1144 is believed to have a mass equivalent to 3 billion of our own sun and that the black hole is believed to consume mass equivalent to one earth per second.

Astronomers in Australia used the SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey telescope to find the black hole that appears to have an unusual appetite. In the picture above, J1144 is seen as the shining blue dot approximately in the middle of the picture.

Below is a feature from the BBC about J1144 where astrophysicist Christopher Reynolds tells a little more about discovery and about black holes in general.