Australian astronomers believe they have found the fastest-growing black hole of the past nine billion years.
The astronomers estimate the ginormous black hole consumes the equivalent of one Earth every second and has the mass of three billion suns.
The Guardian reports the scientists discovered an extremely bright quasar, a luminous object powered by a supermassive black hole. They used the SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey, a 1-3 metre telescope in Coonabarabran, New South Wales.
The giant hole J114447.77-430859.3 or J1144 for short is 7000-times more luminous than all the light from the Milky Way.
Lead researcher at the Australian National University Dr Christopher Onken said the black hole was about halfway across the universe.
"The light we're seeing from this growing black hole has been travelling to us for about 7 billion years," he said.
"The big bang occurred an estimated 13.8 billion years ago."
The scientists found the J1144 is the most luminous quasar in the last nine billion years of cosmic history.
The reason for its unusual luminosity is still unclear.
"Maybe two big galaxies have collided and have funnelled a lot of gas in towards the black hole."
University of Western Australia's Dr Fiona, who wasn't involved in the research but is a gravitational wave astronomer, described the hole as a "very, very messy eater".
"If there's lots of gas and dust being pushed onto the black hole, it will actually spit a lot of it out," she said.
"It will usually get spat out in massive jets, quasars are a particular type of black hole jet."
