Astronomers baffled after black hole 12 million times bigger than our sun discovered

The supermassive black hole is at the centre of a quasar – a powerful galactic.

18:08 26 February 2015

A supermassive black hole that is 12 million times larger that the sun has been recently discovered by scientists.

Found at the centre of a quasar, it was named SDSS J0100+2808.

It is 12.8 billion light years from Earth and was formed 900 million years after the Big Bang, which gave birth to the universe.

Astronomers are baffled why such an enormous black hole formed so soon after the first stars and galaxies emerged.

Dr Fuyan Bian, from the Australian National University, who was involved in the discovery, explained: ‘Forming such a large black hole so quickly is hard to interpret with current theories…

‘This black hole at the centre of the quasar gained enormous mass in a short period of time.’

Professor Xue-Bing Wu, from Peking University in China, who led the study reported in the journal Nature, said: ‘This quasar is very unique.

‘We are so excited, when we found that there is such a luminous and massive quasar only 0.9 billion years after the Big Bang.

‘Just like the brightest lighthouse in the distant universe, its glowing light will help us to probe more about the early universe.’