Astronomers impressed by 'sheer power' of black hole blast

The universe must have eaten some leftover takeout that had been sitting in the fridge too long — that might explain why astronomers have spotted the largest black hole explosion ever recorded. The "energetic quasar outflow" is five times more powerful than any other previously observed, unleashing more than 400 times the weight of our sun in gas, dust and other material every year. "We were hoping to see something like this, but the sheer power of this outflow still took us by surprise," said Nahum Arav, an astronomer at Virginia Tech who measured the outflow's properties. Fortunately the blast is more than 11.5 billion light years away, so no need to blame it on the dog. [Source]

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