Astronomers discover gigantic black hole in distant galaxy
A team of astronomers just found a black hole in the Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy that's about 36 billion times heavier than our Sun—making it one of the largest ever discovered.
This galaxy sits roughly five billion light-years from Earth, and the discovery was led by Carlos Melo, with Thomas Collett as a contributing researcher.
To measure the black hole's mass
To nail down its size, scientists used two clever tricks: gravitational lensing (where gravity bends light from objects behind the galaxy) and tracking how fast stars move near the black hole.
Combining these methods gave them a super accurate measurement.
The find is making scientists rethink how galaxies grow
This black hole is around 10,000 times heavier than the one at our Milky Way's center and nearly hits what scientists think is the maximum possible size.
It's making researchers rethink how galaxies—and their monster black holes—grow over time, and it adds fresh proof that bigger galaxies tend to have bigger central black holes.