About 5 billion light-years away from where you’re sitting, in one of the most massive galaxies on record, there exists an astonishing black hole.
It was only just measured by scientists who managed to peer through the fabric of warped space-time — and it appears to hold a mass equivalent to that of 36 billion suns.
Yes, billion.
“This is amongst the top 10 most massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive,” Thomas Collett, study author and a professor at the University of Portsmouth in England, said in a statement.
Astronomers have identified an ultra massive black hole that could be the largest ever measured, hidden in a distant galaxy known as the Cosmic Horseshoe.
This gargantuan object, weighing about 36 billion Suns, warps space so strongly that light from a background galaxy is bent into a perfect Einstein ring.
Record-Breaking Cosmic Giant
Astronomers have identified what could be the most massive black hole ever found.
This colossal object is close to the maximum size thought possible in the universe and is about 10,000 times more massive than the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
It sits within one of the largest known galaxies, called the Cosmic Horseshoe.
This enormous galaxy bends spacetime so strongly that it distorts light from a more distant galaxy, creating a vast, horseshoe-shaped feature known as an Einstein ring.
The black hole’s mass is estimated at an astonishing 36 billion times that of our Sun.
The discovery is significant because it will help astronomers understand the connection between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies.
“We think the size of both is intimately linked,” Professor Collett added, “because when galaxies grow, they can funnel matter down onto the central black hole.
