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 Scientists said this black hole was formed about 900 million years
after the Big Bang.
But with measurements indicating it is 12 billion times the size of
the Sun, the black hole challenges a widely accepted hypothesis of
growth rates.
"Based on previous research, this is the largest black hole found
for that period of time," Dr Fuyan Bian, Research School of
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University (ANU),
told Reuters on Wednesday.
"Current theory is for a limit to how fast a black hole can grow,
but this black hole is too large for that theory."
 The creation of supermassive black holes remains an open topic of
research. However, many scientists have long believed the growth
rate of black holes was limited.
Black holes grow, scientific theory suggests, as they absorb mass.
However, as mass is absorbed, it will be heated creating radiation
pressure, which pushes the mass away from the black hole.
"Basically, you have two forces balanced together which sets up a
limit for growth, which is much smaller than what we found," said
Bian.
The black hole was discovered a team of global scientists led by
Xue-Bing Wu at Peking University, China, as part of the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey, which provided imagery data of 35 percent of the
northern hemisphere sky.
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The ANU is leading a comparable project, known as SkyMapper, to
carry out observations of the Southern Hemisphere sky.
Bian expects more black holes to be observed as the project
advances.
(Editing by Robert Birsel)
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