Astronomers Discover Ultramassive Black Hole 30 Billion Times Larger Than Sun

Astronomers have recently made an astonishing discovery - a black hole so massive that it might be the largest one known to us yet. With a mass of 30 billion suns, this ultramassive black hole resides at the heart of a galaxy located millions of light-years away from us.

Scientists discovered this black hole through a technique known as gravitational lensing, where the gravity of a foreground galaxy acts like a magnifying glass to reveal background objects too distant to be seen by telescopes made by humans.

NASA

Giant black hole with a mass of 30 billion suns

The giant black hole is not very active and does not produce much x-ray radiation, making its assessment difficult. Most black holes that humanity has spotted so far are actively consuming material, thereby releasing energy in the form of light and x-rays, making it possible for us to spot them.

But, thanks to gravitational lensing, astronomers can study inactive black holes like this one, which could lead to detection of many more black holes beyond our local universe and reveal how such objects were formed over time, Space.com reported.

NASA

Also read: Hubble Captures Supermassive Black Hole Eating A Star Millions Of Light Years Away

"This particular black hole, which is roughly 30 billion times the mass of our sun, is one of the biggest ever detected and on the upper limit of how large we believe black holes can theoretically become, so it is an extremely exciting discovery," said James Nightingale, an astrophysicist at Durham University in the UK and the study's lead author.

To determine the size of this black hole, the team analysed a series of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and used sophisticated computer modeling to simulate how much light bends around the galaxy in the front of where the black hole resides.

Also read: Strange Blast Of Light Turns Out To Be A Black Hole Pointing Straight At Earth

NASA

Thousands of black hole sizes were tested before arriving at the conclusion that it was an ultramassive black hole. This discovery was made possible by gravitational lensing, owing to which scientists can continue to study such black holes that exist beyond our local universe. In this process, they could reveal how such objects evolved in space.

The black hole is located in the Abell 1201 galaxy cluster. The findings from this study were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on March 29, 2023.

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