FOR anyone trying to unlock the mysteries of the universe, there is one thing that is universal, the bigger a black hole is, the better.
Dr Christian Wolf and his team at the Australian National University's (ANU) Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics have found a monster.
"What's really important in this business is how to actually find the most massive ones because they are the hardest ones to explain," he told ABC News Australia.
Supermassive black holes, or quasars, are hard to find among the billions of stars in the universe.
The ultra-violet light emitted from the quasar was detected by the SkyMapper telescope at the ANU Siding Spring Observatory.
There is a supermassive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, but compared to this one, it is a lightweight.
"That one has a mass of 5 million solar masses — that is 40,000 times less mass than the one that we have now found," Dr Wolf explained.
The team estimate that this black hole has a mass of at least 20 billion times greater than the mass of the Sun.
And it's a good thing this monster black hole isn't at the centre of our Milky Way.
As well as its ravenous appetite, it would likely emit so many x-rays, that life on earth probably would not exist.
But don't panic — Dr Wolf says it won't suck us in.
"We don't have to be afraid of that. It is very far away," he said.
The light travelled for 12 billion years until it reached the SkyMapper telescope at the ANU Siding Spring Observatory.
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