A quasar known as JO529-5351, first misidentified as a mere star, is powered by a black hole so ravenous that it "eats just over a sun per day" and has a staggering mass of 17 billion suns, revealed astronomer Christian Wolf, the lead author of a new study that made use of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to gather data.
The quasar (the glowing core of a galaxy) is now considered the brightest object ever observed, some 500 trillion times more luminous than our sun. But before you get out your sunglasses, keep in mind that JO529-5351 is so far away that its light takes over 12 billion years to reach our world.
More on this fascinating phenomenon here. Pictured above is an artist's conception of stars and material falling into a black hole.