The Fastest-Growing Black Hole Ever - Samuel Lai (27th February, 2024)

Researchers at the Australian National University have discovered the fastest growing black hole ever recorded. The black hole is about 17 billion times the mass of the sun and has a radius of about seven light years. It is also one of the fastest feeding black holes, consuming the equivalent of the mass of the sun every day. The light from this black hole has been traveling for about 12 billion years to reach us, as it exists when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old. Despite being famously black, black holes are actually the brightest persistent objects in the universe due to their gravitational energy. The storm surrounding the black hole is made up of mostly hydrogen, which gets heated to high temperatures and radiates brightly. It cannot be seen with a consumer backyard telescope, as a more extensive hobby telescope is needed. The fastest growing black hole ever recorded has been discovered by researchers at the Australian National University recently. It was first detected using a telescope at the ANU's Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran. To wrap our heads around the sheer scale of this discovery, co-author of the finding Samuel Lye from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, amazed I was able to say that whole thing, joins us on the phone. Good morning. Good morning. I just want to start us off, how big is this black hole? So the black hole, if you're talking about its mass, is about 17 billion times the mass of the sun. But if you're speaking instead of linear scales, and you look at the storm that's swirling around the black hole, with the black hole as the eye of the storm, you look at the linear scale of the storm, that is its radius, and that is about seven light years. That is one and a half times larger than the distance between our sun and the closest star. Wow. Yes, that's simply a scale I can barely comprehend. I mean, I know it's not a technical term, but how much sort of stuff is the black hole sucking in from around it? It's one of the fastest feeding black holes, perhaps the fastest feeding black hole that we know of right now. It's sucking in the equivalent matter of the mass of the sun every single day, or equivalently if you do the calculation, if you take the Earth and everybody that's on it, including me and you, you'll eat as much mass as about four of those Earths every single second. Every single second, that is absolutely insane, wow, okay. How far away is it from where we are? So the light coming from this, what we call a quasar, or a black hole, has been traveling about 12 billion years to reach us. This black hole exists in the universe at a time when it was only one and a half billion years old. Right, so technically how we're seeing it is actually it in the past. That's exactly right, yeah. Wow, okay, that's something else to wrap my head around. So I've seen the photos, not the sort of the generated ones, but the real photo of the light in the sky, but it being a black hole, how does it actually produce light? Yeah, so this is one of my favorite questions really, so thank you. Oh, good. The black holes are famously black, right? It's in the name. I mean, what you see in the media is always from which not even light can escape, right? But it turns out that, paradoxically, black holes are also the brightest persistent objects that we know of in the universe. And the reason why is because of the insane scale and the gravitational energy of the black hole. It forms the engine to power all of this storm that's going around it, and the storm, because of the viscosity in that fluid, gets heated to very, very high temperatures. And as we know, anything that's hot shines very brightly. So this material that is very hot continues to radiate, and we capture that radiation with the oscilloscopes here on Earth. Right, okay. That actually kind of makes sense to me, amazingly. That's the first thing I've properly grasped from all these incredible facts so far. Wait there a second, mate. We're speaking to Samuel Lye from the ANU's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. It's a long term, and it's full of fascinating information, including what we're discussing, the fastest-growing black hole ever recorded, and it was first sighted nearby at Coonamara Bran. Quick break, mate. Back in a sec. You're on Zoo's Breakfast. It's Zoo FM, your home of Dubbo's best music from the 80s, to now right across here. Samuel, we're speaking to Samuel Lye from the ANU's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics about the fastest-growing black hole ever recorded, and they first sighted it nearby, just up at Coonamara Bran. So, this storm surrounding the black hole, what's it really made up of? So, it's a lot of material in the early universe. It's mostly going to be hydrogen, and because of the temperatures and the fluxes that are incident on that gas, you'll have very much just the plasma, so purely ionised hydrogen. You have protons, electrons, zipping around at velocities of tens of thousands of kilometres per second. That is actually, that is incredibly quick. Theoretically, I mean, the question went just slightly past my mind, what would happen if, say, not Earth, because I don't want to hypothesise that, what would happen if a planet was close to it, and how close does that have to be? Well, planets, I mean, if it was close enough to it, it's worth noting that even though the event horizon of this black hole, if you placed it in the centre of our solar system, the event horizon would go all the way beyond the scale of all of the planets. Oh, wow. So, yeah, I mean, the scale of our Earth to the Sun is pretty far, it's about eight light minutes, right? But if we were anywhere in that distance, we would already be inside the black hole, there's no coming back from there. Yes, any planet that comes anywhere near this black hole, this enormous size, would be entirely ripped apart. And, yeah, that does not sound pleasant at all. Just one more final thing. Can it be, so it can be seen from Earth, but can it be seen, like, by, you know, the sort of consumer backyard telescope, or does it require something a bit more complex? So, its visual magnitude is about 16 megs, so that's astronomy terminology. Right. But the amateur astronomers, they'll likely understand that they would need a bit more of an extensive hobby telescope to see something like that. Oh, right, so it's not going to be something where I'll be able to, like, lie down on a field somewhere, look up, and then be able to point out where it is. No, no. All right, fair enough. Thank you very much, Samuel, for your time. It's absolutely fascinating. Yeah, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. That was Samuel Lye from the ANU's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, giving us the rundown on the fastest-growing black hole ever recorded. A lot of facts there that hopefully we'll never have to worry about. However, it is interesting to find out the details about the thing. It was discovered, first sighted, just nearby at Coonabarabran. You're on Zeus, Brecky.