How Did Phoenix A Black Hole Get So Big?

Phoenix A* is the largest black hole we’ve ever discovered, located in the Phoenix Cluster, one of the most massive galaxy clusters known to us. But how does something like this even come to exist? How does it grow so incredibly large?
- Sources:

WATCH ANOTHER ONE: Is Phoenix A* the Largest Black Hole in the Universe?

You are welcome to support us so we can create more quality content:

Join this channel to get access to the perks:

----

A Cosmoknowledge production.

Narrated by:
Russell Archey

Graphics:
ESO/MPE/M. Schartmann/L. Calçada
Klaus Dolag (MPA, Garching)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Chris Smith (USRA/GESTAR)
SXS
Advanced Visualization Laboratory
National Center for Supercomputing
B. O'Shea, M. Norman
NASA/CXC/MIT/M.McDonald
NRAO/VLA/STScI
NASA's Eyes
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Theophilus Britt Griswold,
SAO/A.Paggi/STScI/NSF/NRAO/VLA

Music:
Traversing - Godmode

A big thank you to our lovely channel members:
Joseph Pacchetti
john roberts
Ali Rıza Şeren
Heywood Tate
Dave Jarrard
jaeyun tous les monde
Qing Li
No One
Iv Müller
Thomas Nathan
NES ERE ATON
-
Cosmoknowledge brings news from space.
We love you, explorers!

[Zesta]

The fact that we saw how big Phoenix A from 5.8b years ago is just unbelievable

[Hntiever]

I wish we could instantly teleport there to observe what it's like right now.

[rickfowler]

It’s so terrifying knowing something this massive and deadly is out there.

[seigled]

It’s insane when you think about how insignificant we are in the grand scale of things

[JOEYVRGT]

Fun fact: Black holes could basically grow by colliding with the other black holes once the Blackholes have collide, it grows bigger that’s all.

[robr]

As far as the origins of Supermassive Black Holes go I lean towards the Quasi-star theory. Stars with a blackhole as its core. Those massive stars could easily be the seeds of supermassive blackholes.

[astrofan]

While it is speculated that Phoenix A* is 100 billion solar masses, this has not yet been confirmed by observation of its orbital mechanics. For all we know, it could be significantly smaller. After all, when we discovered TON 618 (the former record holder for the largest black hole discovered), it was estimated to be at about 66 billion solar masses, but has since been reduced to around 40.7 billion solar masses. Furthermore, the previous theoretical limit for the size of a black hole was around 50 billion solar masses, mainly due to how young we believe the universe is.

Now, the size of Phoenix A* could be explained by a series of galactic mergers and being seeded by primordial black holes, and also being formed from a massive dust cloud (as all explained in this video), but if the observations from the James Webb Space Telescope are correct, the universe may be at least twice as old than we thought it was. This would also serve as an explanation for why we are seeing black holes that are supposedly larger than the theoretical limit: they had more time to feed and grow, and are thus larger than our current models predicted.

Again, this is assuming that the JWST's observations are correct; they may not be, and Phoenix A* could have very well grown to its supposedly colossal size through galactic mergers, absorbing other black holes, and whatnot. Only once we can observe the black hole in more detail will we be able to pin down its true mass and determine if it is in line with our current cosmological models or rewrites the book entirely.

[joakimbergendahl]

I do believe that when all black holes in the universe has eaten everything up and merged with eachother, the universe will reset and kaboom once again.

[josephpacchetti]

And I thought TON-618 was big, Thanks Guys, your the best.🇺🇸

[wndr]

5.8 Billion light years away from That's gonna be a long trip better bring some extra coffee.😂

[ToothNroost]

Great video but also great to see more videos with Russell voicing them!

[kylem]

It’s not collapsing into a single point in space. Well, it could be, or there could be a Planck star in there, or it could be a big ball of strings, or something else entirely, nobody knows if it really collapses into a single point until we figure out quantum gravity.

[driverman]

How can a "black hole" grow if it condenses everything to "nothing"?

[NumberblocksFan]

It's formed from a quasi star because the universe is not old enough for black holes to merge or eat to become supermassive or ultramassive
And also these black holes eats gas in their own galaxy which makes them more massive

[dillonmacpherson]

Hey that's the ExploreWithUs narrator!

[brownies]

i swear this is the same voiceover guy from Explore with us (the channel)

[Meimeilee-qd]

Dude it might form during Early space the black hole star is the biggest star might exist (qussi star)

[francoisstcentury]

Ribbons extended. How did Phoenix a black hole get so big?

[AdrianCHOY]

Isn’t it Ton 618? It’s now Phoenix A Star?

[CollistoJupiter]

I’m so used to hearing this voice on my crime videos