Astronomers have identified what may be the largest black hole ever discovered, with a mass 36 billion times that of our Sun. Located in the Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy, about 5 billion light-years away, this colossal black hole is nearly 10,000 times more massive than the one at the center of the Milky Way.
The discovery was made possible by combining two techniques: gravitational lensing and stellar kinematics. By analyzing how the galaxy’s gravity bends passing light and tracking the movement patterns of stars near the black hole, researchers were able to measure its mass with unprecedented accuracy.
“This is amongst the top 10 most massive black holes ever discovered,” said Professor Thomas Collett from the University of Portsmouth. “Our new method provides much more certainty about the mass of this black hole than traditional methods.”
The Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy is a fossil group galaxy, consisting of the sole bright galaxy remaining after several smaller galaxies merged over time. The team believes that supermassive black holes like this one are typically found in the largest galaxies.
The discovery of this massive black hole has revealed new insights into how such black holes shape the growth and evolution of galaxies. By using a powerful new method to find and measure these black holes, scientists hope to uncover more hidden ultramassive black holes across the universe.
Researchers plan to use their new technique with data from the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope to search for more massive black holes like this one.
Source: https://www.techspot.com/news/109006-astronomers-spot-black-hole-36-billion-times-mass.html