Siding Spring

An artist's impression of the brightest object ever discovered – a quasar that shines with the light of 500 trillion Suns – which is also the fastest growing black hole, eating the equivalent of a Sun a day

Space

Brightest object in the universe is swallowing a Sun every day

The brightest object in the known universe has just been found. It's a supermassive black hole with the mass of 17 billion Suns, and it swallows another Suns’ worth of material every day, making it also the fastest-growing black hole ever found.

The Anglo-Australian Telescope in Siding Spring Observatory is home to a new planet-hunting instrument

Space

Australian observatory hunts Earth-like planets by watching for wobbling stars

A new exoplanet hunting tool has been installed onto an Australian telescope. Dubbed Veloce, the instrument looks out for the wobble of a star caused by the gravitational tug of orbiting planets, and it specializes in red dwarfs, the most common type of star in the universe.

Space

Orbiters study effect of giant comet-caused meteor shower on Mars

According to observations made by NASA and ESA orbiters, the extremely close flyby of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring was accompanied by a meteor shower larger than any seen on Earth.

All three of NASA's orbiters were moved to the far side of Mars to protect them from comet debris (Image: NASA)

Space

NASA Mars probes watch comet near-miss

After a dramatic, one-in-a-million-years close encounter between Mars and comet Siding Spring on Sunday, all five functioning US Mars probes survived, and are returning valuable data on the comet.