The largest black hole has been found: it can hold 30 billion suns

(ORDO NEWS) — The latest discovery in the galaxy Abell 1201 has attracted the attention of the scientific community. One of the largest black holes in the known cosmos was discovered in this object. This is reported by the publication Space.

The newly discovered supermassive black hole is located at the center of the galaxy Abell 1201, hundreds of millions of light-years from Earth. It received the title of supermassive black hole, because it can contain more than 30 billion solar masses.

It is thus the largest supermassive black hole that astronomers have identified and measured. Usually, the mass of such objects ranges from several million to several billion solar masses.

Astronomers found the object by accident while observing another galaxy. They discovered the black hole through gravitational lensing, an effect caused by the bending of light by the gravity of extremely massive objects.

This time, this object turned out to be a supermassive black hole. A team of researchers analyzed a series of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Next, astronomers modeled the refraction of light around the galaxy and found the exact dimensions of the black hole.

The black hole in the Abell 1201 galaxy turned out to be not very active, so it is almost impossible to detect it by other methods than gravitational lensing.

“Gravitational lensing makes it possible to study dormant black holes, which is currently impossible in distant galaxies. This approach may allow us to detect many other black holes,” said astrophysicist and study author James Nightingale.

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