Astronomers Spot Fastest-Growing Black Hole Ever Found

 Astronomers using recently released data from the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft have discovered the fastest-growing black hole ever found. At the time, the black hole was seen devouring a mass equivalent to Earth's sun every two days.
 The brightly shining object was identified as a black hole. This black hole appeared to have a mass of about 20 billions suns when light was released and was found to be growing by 1 percent every million years.
 In the end though, the black hole is far enough away that it likely released its light over 12 billion years ago. Although the light began in ultraviolet light and x-rays, this light has shifted into the near-infrared during its long journey to Earth. This light was detected by researchers using the SkyMapper telescope at the Australian National University. They then used data collected by Gaia to confirm that the wavelengths being detected were truly the composition of a black hole.
 "This black hole is growing so rapidly that it's shining thousands of times more brightly than an entire galaxy, due to all the gases it sucks in daily that cause lots of friction and heat," said Christian Wolf, an astronomer at the Australian National University and first author on the new research.

Read more about this fascinating story at: https://www.space.com/40596-fastest-growing-black-hole-found.html
Or read the full study at:  https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.04317