The most luminous object ever detected has been spied in the distant Universe. It's a quasar - the bright core of a galaxy that is powered by a gargantuan black hole some 17 billion times the mass of our Sun. Known as J0529-4351, the object's power was confirmed in observations by the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Scientists, reporting in the journal Nature Astronomy, say the black hole has a voracious appetite, consuming the mass equivalent to one Sun every day. J0529-4351 was actually recorded in data many years ago but its true glory has only just been recognised. "We have discovered an object which has previously not been recognised for what it is; it's been staring into our eyes for many years because it's been glowing at its brightness for longer than humankind has probably existed. But we've now recognised it, not as being one of the many foreground stars in our Milky Way but as a very distant object," Christian Wolf, from the Australian National University (ANU), told BBC News.
