A recent article in Nature Astronomy says that the brightest object in the universe has been discovered.

Around a million quasars have been catalogued in the Universe by probing deeper and using new methods for discovery. The black hole in this quasar accretes around one solar mass per day onto an existing mass of ∼17 billion solar masses. It shines 500 trillion times brighter than our sun.
The scientists imagine a fierce place that resembles a cosmic hurricane. It was hidden and had previously been misclassified as a star.
To get an idea of the size, it gobbles up the equivalent of about one sun per day and the mass of the black hole is 17 to 19 billion times that of our sun. The quasar is 12 billion light years away and has existed since the earliest days of the universe.

https://earthsky.org/space/record-quasa ... lack-hole/

Sometimes, I feel small.

On his blog, Amable from Spain has many thoughts on Fixed Stars, black holes, centaurs, dwarf planets, trans-Neptunian objects and more.
He says that...
"The first quasars were discovered at the end of the fifties and beginning of the sixties. In the year 1979 the gravitational lens effect predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was confirmed observationally for the first time with images of a double quasar. By that time appeared the first movie of "Star Trek" (1979). In the 1980s, unified models for quasars were developed. By that time appeared the movies "Terminator" (1984) and "Back to the Future" (1985)."
https://galactic-astrology.blogspot.com ... -hole.html

Ouranos wrote:Sometimes, I feel small.

lol...you are not alone in that.

Yep, helps to give our little lives a sense of perspective But we are all part of everything, so really - how big are we ! ?

Ouranos wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2024 6:18 amA recent article in Nature Astronomy says that the brightest object in the universe has been discovered.

I have discovered it too: It is the Sun! It is the only one that is so bright and gives all the energy to us. Others … just chasing rainbows, no?