An illustration of Quasar SDSS J1106+1939 ejecting materials (Photo: ESO/L. Calçada)

Astronomical records are broken this week as we reported the discovery of the largest black hole in the known universe yesterday, an incredible mass that is equivalent to 17 billion suns. In fact, the mass of this black hole is so great, it accounts for 14 percent of the mass in its galaxy, NGC 1277. If a black hole of this magnitude was located in our Milky Way, it would swallow our solar system whole.

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Now, the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope of Chile has found something incomprehensibly larger - a quasar blast with an outflow of energy equal to one trillion suns. In fact, it ejects 100 times the energy of our entire Milky Way galaxy.

A Black hole is an enormous, dark, invisible vortex that is capable of sucking all forms of materials including light and will continue to grow in mass as it devours more and more energy and matter particles. Quasars, which surround supermassive black holes, perform the exact opposite phenomena of ejecting materials at an incredibly high rate of speed. Here's another figure to throw around: the latest discovered mega-quasar is a staggering five-times more intense than the next most powerful blast ever recorded.

The discovery of the brilliant quasar was actually made earlier this year but only recently did studies accepted by The Astrophysical Journal officially confirm evidence that it is the most powerful blast to date. Scientists hope that the findings from this astounding quasar can help them understand exactly how quasars influence the universe.

Team leader Nahum Arav of Virginia Tech explains the data recorded from the observation: "We have discovered the most energetic quasar outflow known to date. The rate that energy is carried away by this huge mass of material ejected at high speed from SDSS J1106+1939 is at least equivalent to two million million times the power output of the Sun."

"This is the first time that a quasar outflow has been measured to have the sort of very high energies that are predicted by theory. I've been looking for something like this for a decade, so it's thrilling to finally find one of the monster outflows that have been predicted!"

Translating this energy into mass, quasar SDSS J1106+1939 endlessly shoots out particles at 5,000 mph that equal to a rate of approximately 400 times the mass of the sun each year.

Quasar theories among scientists involve its role in the formation of galaxies as well as ideas that form relationships between the mass of a galaxy to the mass of its central supermassive black hole.