Latest news with #CosmicHorseshoe
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Discover What Appears to Be the Largest Black Hole in the Universe, So Heavy That It Completely Bends the Light Around It Into a Giant Ring
Astronomers have discovered what could be the largest black hole ever detected. With a mass of 36 billion times that of our Sun, its gravity is so powerful that it bends the light of an entire galaxy behind it into a near-perfect circle called an Einstein ring, effectively reducing a realm with trillions of stars of its own into an astrophysical fashion accessory. It's 10,000 times as heavy as our Milky Way's own central black hole, and is nigh unto breaking the universe's theoretical upper limit. If anything ever warranted being called a cosmic monster, it's this. "This is amongst the top ten most massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive," Thomas Collett, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth and coauthor of a new study about the giant in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, said in a statement about the work. Other detections of similar sized objects, Collett noted, have generally come with uncertainties too large to be definitive. This not-super but ultramassive black hole lurks in the center of the famous Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy, which itself ranks among the most massive ever spotted. The galaxy is considered a fossil group, which formed from other large galaxies — and their constituent supermassive black holes — collapsing together. "So we're seeing the end state of galaxy formation and the end state of black hole formation," Collet said. It's no exaggeration to say, then, that we're literally witnessing a black hole's final form. Located some five billion light years away, the Cosmic Horseshoe is so named due to its gravitational lensing effect, a phenomenon in which the light of a background galaxy is warped by the gravity of a foreground one. Lensing is common throughout the cosmos, and it can be a fortuitous tool for astronomers, acting like a magnifying glass that allows them to observe distant objects whose light would otherwise be too faint to examine. But in this case, the huge foreground galaxy and its companion in the background happen to be in almost perfect alignment with our Earthly perspective, bending the light into an incomplete ring. Astronomers have long suspected that there was a black hole at the heart of the Cosmic Horseshoe, but have never been able to spot — let alone measure — it. One of the reasons why is its extreme distance, at billions of light years away. But the even more impressive hurdle that's been overcome is that it's a "dormant" black hole that's no longer accreting matter, according to Carlos Melo, lead author from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. "Typically, for such remote systems, black hole mass measurements are only possible when the black hole is active," Melo said. "But those accretion-based estimates often come with significant uncertainties." When a black hole devours significant amounts of matter, the infalling material gets heated up and radiates huge amounts of energy and light, forming what's known as an active galactic nucleus. (The brightest of these are called quasars.) But this detection "relied purely on [the black hole's] immense gravitational pull and the effect it has on its surroundings," Melo said. Their method involved a combination of lensing and what's known as stellar kinematics, which allows astronomers to infer a black hole's mass by studying the velocity of stars trapped in the surrounding galaxy. "What is particularly exciting is that this method allows us to detect and measure the mass of these hidden ultramassive black holes across the universe, even when they are completely silent," Melo said. And its size is no coincidence. There's a reason, the astronomers argue, that we're finding this ultramassive rarity in one of the heaviest galaxies on record, and not in one of relatively unremarkable size like our Milky Way, which hosts a comparatively puny black hole of 4.3 million solar masses. "We think the size of both is intimately linked," Collet said, "because when galaxies grow, they can funnel matter down onto the central black hole." That may seem like an obvious conclusion to draw, but how supermassive black holes attain their enormous sizes remains one of the great mysteries of cosmology. Some have been spotted so early on in the universe's history that they physically shouldn't exist, not having enough time to accrete the mass they possess. If it formed from galactic mergers, it provides a strong clue of at least one mechanism that can spawn these colossal objects. More on black holes: Bizarre "Infinity Galaxy" Could Hold the Secrets of Supermassive Black Holes Solve the daily Crossword
WIRED
4 days ago
- Science
- WIRED
This Might Be the Most Massive Black Hole Ever Discovered
Aug 13, 2025 5:47 AM New measurements of the galaxy at the heart of the 'Cosmic Horseshoe' indicate that it could house the most massive object ever seen in the universe. Astronomers have identified what could be a new supermassive black hole, and with an estimated mass 36 billion times that of the sun, it is about 10,000 times heavier than the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. This would make it among the most massive objects ever detected. The finding, published in the Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, was made by researchers from the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth in the UK in collaboration with the Federal University of Rio Grande in Brazil. The scientists located the signs of the new supermassive black hole within a gravitational lens known as the 'Cosmic Horseshoe,' pictured below. A gravitational lens occurs when the gravity of a massive object, such as a galaxy, is so great that it bends light and time that passes near it, distorting light traveling from behind. The Cosmic Horsehoe was discovered by the Hubble telescope in 2007. The galaxy LRG 3-757 sits at its center, while the blue horseshoe shape surrounding this yellow-colored object is distorted light emitted from another galaxy beyond it. LRG 3-757 is one of the most massive galaxies ever observed by astronomers, having a mass 100 times that of the Milky Way, and it sits approximately 5.6 billion light-years away from Earth. The gravitational lens known as the Cosmic Horseshoe, so named because of the appearance of the incomplete ring of blue light that surrounds its central galaxy, LRG 3-757. Photograph: NASA/ESA Thanks to this luminous structure, astronomers have been able to calculate the mass of the black hole that presumably lies at the center of LRG 3-757 (while not definitively proven, large galaxies are assumed to have a black hole at their center). Although there are no direct observations of this black hole, measurements of the motion of light in the ring and the velocity of stars in the inner regions of the galaxy are consistent with the presence of an ultramassive black hole. 'By combining these two measurements we can be completely confident that the black hole is real,' Thomas Collett, professor of astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth, said in a press statement. Collett also suggests that a black hole of such proportions could only originate from the merger of two supermassive black holes resulting from the collision of galaxies. Astronomers are still debating whether this will be the shared fate of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and neighboring Andromeda. What About TON 618 and the Like? Any astronomy enthusiast knows that the most massive object found in the universe so far is potentially TON 618. According to the most widespread estimates, this black hole has a mass equivalent to 66 billion suns, almost twice that of the Cosmic Horseshoe. However, scientists are cautious about labelling TON 618 as the most massive object ever seen. Being located more than 10 billion light-years away, its host galaxy and surrounding objects cannot be observed in detail. What little is known about it comes from analysis of its brightness and from theoretical models that allow us to estimate its size. The uncertainty is too high to consider it the most massive black hole known. In contrast, the Portsmouth researchers argue that the Cosmic Horseshoe black hole offers greater observational certainty, unlike distant, almost mythological holes like TON 618. As such, they claim that their discovery could represent the most massive black hole confirmed to date. This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
36 Billion Suns: Record Black Hole Discovery Could Be as Big as They Get
A black hole deep in the cosmos, some 5 billion light-years away, could be the most massive ever found. The galaxy SDSS J1148+1930 harbors a behemoth, around 36.3 billion times the mass of our Sun, according to new measurements. That places the black hole's mass very close to the practical upper limit. For context, the Milky Way's central black hole is a piddling 4.3 million solar masses. This newly discovered black hole no longer fits within the category of supermassive – the giant beast of a thing is ultramassive. Related: Black Holes Could Get So Humongous, Astronomers Came Up With a New Size Category "This is amongst the top 10 most massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive," says astrophysicist Thomas Collett of the University of Portsmouth in the UK. "Most of the other black hole mass measurements are indirect and have quite large uncertainties, so we really don't know for sure which is biggest. However, we've got much more certainty about the mass of this black hole thanks to our new method." Supermassive black holes, larger than about a million solar masses, are thought to lurk in the heart of every full-sized galaxy, the gravitational hub around which everything else in the galaxy revolves. Theoretically, there's no limit to how massive a black hole could grow. In practical terms, other constraints, such as the growth rate, suggest that the maximum mass a black hole could achieve within the current 13.8-billion-year lifespan of the Universe is about 50 billion solar masses. The only way we can test these upper limits, however, is by finding the black holes involved. Which brings us to a fascinating feature in Earth's sky known as the Cosmic Horseshoe. This is a horseshoe-shaped smear of light arcing around a central glowing blob – the result of a rare cosmic alignment called a gravitational lens. Each of the two components – the smear and the blob – are along the same line of sight, at different distances. The blob is actually a galaxy so massive that its gravitational field warps and magnifies the light from a more distant light source. That's what makes the smear. We can learn a lot about distant stars and galaxies magnified this way, but in this case, it's the foreground blob in which a team of astronomers led by Carlos Melo-Carneiro of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil discovered their astonishing black hole. "This discovery was made for a 'dormant' black hole – one that isn't actively accreting material at the time of observation," Melo-Carneiro says. "Its detection relied purely on its immense gravitational pull and the effect it has on its surroundings." In a lensed system, the extent of the lensing reveals the strength of the gravitational field, which is linked to the mass of the foreground object. Since the masses of supermassive black holes are proportional to the masses of their galaxies, this is one way to calculate the mass of a black hole at a galactic center. Another tool for determining the mass of quiescent black holes involves stellar kinematics – the way stars and other material whirl around. Long-term observations of orbits around the Milky Way's galactic center, for example, confirmed the presence of the black hole therein and provided a measure for its mass. The Cosmic Horseshoe was discovered in 2007. Observations taken at intervals since then allowed the researchers to determine the motions at play in the galactic center. Combined with analysis of the radial arc of the more distant galaxy, the results gave what the researchers say is a very robust measurement. Heavier black holes have been detected, but the measurements are perhaps a little less confident. TON-618 is a famous example. Its mass was initially thought to be around 66 billion solar masses; however, this was revised down in 2019 to about 40 billion solar masses based on galactic kinematics. What makes SDSS J1148+1930 a little more exciting, however, is that it's what is known as a fossil galaxy. This is a single, massive blob of a galaxy that was once a galaxy cluster. The researchers believe that, over time, the galaxies in the cluster – each with a supermassive black hole in its center – merged, their black holes also eventually glomming into one big 36 billion solar mass black hole. It's a huge clue about one of the Universe's many open questions: how supermassive black holes get so enormous. In the Cosmic Horseshoe, "we're seeing the end state of galaxy formation and the end state of black hole formation," Collett says. The discovery has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Related News NASA Rovers Keep Getting Stuck, And We Finally Know Why Wild New Theory Suggests Gravitational Waves Shaped The Universe August's Full Sturgeon Moon Is Here: What It Is And How to See It Solve the daily Crossword
NDTV
09-08-2025
- Science
- NDTV
Biggest-Ever Black Hole With Mass Of 36 Billion Suns Discovered: 'Cosmic Behemoth'
Scientists may have discovered the biggest black hole ever that holds a mass equivalent to that of 36 billion suns. This supermassive black hole is located five billion light-years away from Earth and sits at the centre of a giant galaxy in the Cosmic Horseshoe system, named for its striking horseshoe-shaped ring of light formed by gravitational lensing. The gigantic black hole's size is close to the theoretical upper limit of what is possible in the universe. It is 10,000 times heavier than the black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius A*, which holds a mass of 4.15 million suns. "This is amongst the top 10 most massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive," said Thomas Collett, study author and a professor at the University of Portsmouth in England. 'Most of the other black hole mass measurements are indirect and have quite large uncertainties, so we really don't know for sure which is biggest. However, we've got much more certainty about the mass of this black hole thanks to our new method.' Researchers managed to find the 'cosmic behemoth' using a combination of gravitational lensing and stellar kinematics (the study of the motion of stars within galaxies and the speed and way they move around black holes). Despite being massive in size, the newly-discovered black hole has been dubbed a "dormant" black hole, meaning it is not actively swallowing matter in its surroundings. Notably, Sagittarius A* is also a dormant black hole. Supermassive black holes Scientists are of the view that every galaxy in the universe has a supermassive black hole at its centre and that bigger galaxies host bigger ones, known as supermassive black holes. Current theories surmise that supermassive black holes evolve from initial "seeds" formed either through the collapse of the universe's first stars (light seeds) or by direct gas cloud collapse (heavy seeds). However, these theories have lacked substantial observational backing so far. In November last year, scientists discovered a supermassive black hole, devouring matter at a phenomenal rate -- over 40 times the theoretical limit, called the Eddington limit. Named LID-568, the black hole was discovered using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Chandra X-ray Observatory. The black hole's hunger to consume matter challenged the existing models by suggesting that these bodies are capable of exceeding the Eddington limits.
Gizmodo
08-08-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
Heaviest Black Hole Ever Found Pushes Limit of What's Cosmologically Possible
The largest black hole ever detected is 36 billion times the mass of our Sun. It exists near the upper limit predicted by our cosmological models, leaving astronomers with burning questions surrounding the relationship between black holes and their galaxy hosts. In a paper published August 7 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers announced the discovery of a black hole inside a supermassive galaxy 5 billion light-years from Earth, dubbed the Cosmic Horseshoe. The newly spotted monster is roughly 10,000 times heavier than the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's core, according to a statement. Theoretical predictions set the upper bound of a black hole's mass at 40 to 50 billion times that of the Sun; this cosmic behemoth stands at 36 billion times the Sun's mass, so it comes precariously close to what calculations allow. The Cosmic Horseshoe's enormous size visibly warps spacetime, bending the light from nearby galaxies into a horseshoe-shaped glare called an Einstein Ring. This fortuitous celestial quirk, along with more traditional detection methods, allowed astronomers to spot the new black hole, which has yet to be named. 'This is amongst the top 10 most massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive,' Thomas Collett, study co-author and a cosmologist at the University of Portsmouth in England, said in the statement. 'Most of the other black hole mass measurements are indirect and have quite large uncertainties, so we really don't know for sure which is biggest.' Most large galaxies appear to host supermassive black holes at their core, including the Milky Way. Cosmological models predicted that bigger galaxies, like the Cosmic Horseshoe, might be capable of hosting even larger, 'ultramassive' black holes. However, such ultramassive black holes were difficult to spot, as the conventional method of tracking the motion of stars around them—stellar kinematics—wasn't effective for dormant, faraway black holes. The researchers overcame this limitation with gravitational lensing, a method that doesn't depend on necessarily 'seeing' the motion of cosmic entities. They also took observational data from the Very Large Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope to create a comprehensive model of the galaxy. This two-pronged approach allowed the team to spot a 'dormant' black hole 'purely on its immense gravitational pull and the effect it has on its surroundings,' explained Carlos Melo, study lead author and PhD student at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, in the same statement. 'We detected the effect of the black hole in two ways,' Collett said. 'It is altering the path that light takes as it travels past the black hole, and it is causing the stars in the inner regions of its host galaxy to move extremely quickly. By combining these two measurements, we can be completely confident that the black hole is real.' 'What is particularly exciting is that this method allows us to detect and measure the mass of these hidden ultramassive black holes across the universe,' Melos added, 'even when they are completely silent.' Another notable aspect of the Cosmic Horseshoe's environment is that it's a 'fossil group.' These dark, massive systems are primarily driven by gravitational forces and usually come as the final product of a series of galaxy mergers. 'It is likely that all of the supermassive black holes that were originally in the companion galaxies have also now merged to form the ultramassive black hole that we have detected,' said Collett. 'So we're seeing the end state of galaxy formation and the end state of black hole formation.' The new black hole is clearly impressive, and it'll be exciting to see what else astronomers discover about it. It's also a fantastic demonstration of multi-messenger astronomy—the coordination of different signal types from the same astronomical event. This has been essential in redefining phenomena that we supposedly 'finished' studying, but it's promising to see it support entirely new discoveries. Either way, there's no doubt that we're inching closer than ever to the core of our universe's many mysteries.
