Scientists Found a Black Hole So Huge It's Redefining Astronomy

Astronomers have made a ground-breaking discovery of an ultra-massive black hole that’s 32 billion times the mass of the Sun. This black hole is so huge that its event horizon, the point of no return for matter and light, spans a diameter that’s 1300 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This means if it were placed at the center of the solar system, its edge would lie way beyond interstellar space. The ultra-massive black hole is located at the heart of a galaxy in the central region of a massive cluster, 2.7 billion light-years away from us. What's most remarkable is that astronomers utilized a never-before-used technique to measure the black hole's mass, marking a historic achievement in the field.

So how did astronomers determine the mass of the black hole? How is it even possible to find the black hole’s properties without actually observing it? Finally, and most importantly, why is this result so important for astronomy?

The 56th episode of the Sunday Discovery Series answers all these questions.

RESEARCH PAPER:

Created By: Rishabh Nakra
Written By: Shreejaya Karantha
Narrated By: Jeffrey Smith

[giftedmonster]

This is why science is both great and terrifying. We're always finding out just how much we don't know. The more we know, the more there is to learn

[frankelkjr]

This is the kind of video I like to find where visual matches the explanation, then you have an idea how they come up with the data. Fascinating!

[frankenoise]

We've discovered so much just from observing from our own planet the last 400 years. Astronomy is going to just keep getting more and more amazing the next 400 years!

[Theheadgiver]

Our tiny mammal brains cant fathom how absolutely massive that is. Unreal

[Rosskles]

Great information delivered in a really accessible way, without dramatic exaggeration like a lot of other channels these days.
Keep up the great work!

[jettserUK]

Ultra massive! Thats original and still a gross understatement to describe the sheer immensity of those cosmic things! 👌

[Euquila]

Finding a black hole of this size is definitely a game changed. Can't wait to get the new theories

[TheOne]

Telescopes are so amazing. How can they even see the objects from many billion light years away? That is phenomenal.

[irene_renaissance]

Black holes are really enigmatic! Each episode makes me even more curious about such events. ❤

[markrichards]

This is old information. As someone else mentioned, much larger black holes have been found. TON618 (40 billion solar masses - M☉) and the central black hole of the Phoenix Cluster, Phoenix A (est. 100 billion M☉ but could be more massive).


A term proposed for these is Stupendously LArge Black holeS (SLABS).

The Phoenix A black hole is so huge that it would take 77 days, 14 hours to travel the circumference at light speed.

When black holes are depicted, they are shown with a disk around them like Saturn’s rings, but also a halo above (or below) the black hole. That halo is caused by the intense gravity, bending the light of the far side of the disk around the black hole. So you can actually see the entire disk, even the part that would normally be blocked by the black hole itself.

The animation of the stars whipping around the invisible black hole, is real. It is of our own galaxy’s supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It is called Sagittarius A* (pronounced as Sagittarius A star). The animation itself represents at least a couple decades of pictures of the stars as they orbit Sagittarius A*. The black hole isn’t visible, but the effects of its gravity are apparent on the stars orbiting it. It is also the second picture ever released of a black hole.

[AlmostEthical]

I tried to imagine the scale of the exotic stars of the early universe that formed the basis of the largest black holes and my brain exploded. Good video.

[blitzwarzone]

Crazy that as big as it is its still only a spec among other specs

[Alfredojr]

Image at 3:00 looks like a smiley face 🙂

[wkelly]

Biggest is yet to be found until we are at stupendous biggest ultra massive black hole. We only found a grain of sand on this beach.
I really cant wait on more groundbreaking information about black holes.

[ramachandra]

Great information as always thanks . Using gravitational lensing to determine the mass of a black hole . Hope we find even more ultramassive black holes .

[k___]

Such a great video! I love how informative the sections going through the image were

[hellfire]

The maximum limit of how big a blackhole can be is whatever the universe allows.

[matthewrowell]

Must admit all the exciting new information we are getting from space is truely mind blowing. I feel it is one of the few areas left where there is still so much to discover and understand. Hopefully we get some more answers before I go. Got some questions that want answering. Haha

[incognito]

The fascinating thing about those ultra massive black holes is the fact that estimated age of the universe is not enough for them to grow so enormous, mind-boggling size. If we assume those black holes were created just after the big bang and been constantly devouring matter ever since for entire age of the universe (13.7 billion years), is still not enough time to grow so big.

[CharlesTheFearsomeTrain]

Think about this, space is so big that there can be black holes bigger than this.