Astronomers have discovered a black hole growing at one of the fastest rates ever recorded, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The black hole, RACS J0320-35, has a mass of about a billion Suns and lies 12.8 billion light-years away, seen just 920 million years after the Big Bang.

Producing more X-rays than any other known early-universe black hole, it powers a quasar and appears to be growing at 2.4 times the normal Eddington limit, challenging theories of black hole formation.

The rapid growth could explain how supermassive black holes reach enormous sizes so quickly and may also be linked to rare, high-speed particle jets emitted by some quasars, NASA has reported.

Observations from X-ray, optical, and infrared telescopes helped researchers measure its growth rate at 300–3,000 solar masses per year, offering new insights into the origins and evolution of the universe’s first black holes.