Researchers have found the hungriest black hole ever detected as it feasts on its host galaxy at a rate 40 times faster than the theoretical limit.

Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang that is consuming matter at a phenomenal rate -- over 40 times the theoretical limit. While short lived, this black hole's 'feast' could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early Universe.

Named LID-568, this 7.2-million-solar-mass black hole appears to be feeding on matter at a rate 40 times its Eddington limit and is seen as it existed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.