Astronomers have confirmed It could be a new supermass black hole with an estimated mass of 36 billion times that of the Sun and about 10,000 times heavier than the black hole in the center of the Milky Way. This will make it one of the largest objects ever.
The discovery was published in the Royal Astronomical Society’s monthly notice with researchers from the Institute of Cosmology and Gravity at the University of Portsmouth, Brazil. Scientists have placed the signs of a new supermass black hole in a gravitational lens called the “cosmic horseshoe”, as shown in the figure below. Gravity lenses occur when the gravity of a large object, such as the Milky Way, is so great that it bends light and time for time.
Hubble discovered the universe’s Maho in 2007. GalaxyLRG 3-757 is at its center, and the blue horseshoe-shaped shape surrounding the yellow object is a deformation light emitted from another Milky Way. LRG 3-757 is one of the largest galaxies ever created by astronomers, with a mass of 100 times that of the Milky Way and about 5.6 billion light-years away from Earth.
Thanks to this luminous structure, astronomers were able to calculate the mass of a black hole that might be located in the center of LRG 3-757 (although it has not been confirmed yet, it is assumed that the large galaxy has a black hole in its center). Although this black hole was not directly observed, measurements of the movement of light in the ring and the velocity of stars within the inner regions of the galaxy were consistent with the existence of superplastic black holes. “By combining these two measurements, we can fully believe that black holes are real,” Thomas Collett, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth, said in a press statement.
Collett also shows that such proportions of black holes are only derived from the merger of two super black holes caused by galaxy collisions. Astronomers are still debating whether this is the common destiny of our Milky Way, the Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda.
What about the tons of 618?
As any astronomy enthusiast knows, by far, the largest object found in the universe may be 618 tons. According to the most extensive estimate, the black hole has a mass equivalent to 66 billion suns, almost twice the mass of a cosmic horseshoe.
But scientists are cautious about labeling TON 618 as the largest object ever. Located more than 10 billion light years away, its host Milky Way and surrounding objects cannot be observed in detail. There is little to know about its brightness and theoretical models that allow us to estimate its size. The uncertainty is too high to be considered as the largest black hole known.
By contrast, Portsmouth researchers believe that the cosmic horseshoe black hole has greater observational certainty, almost mythical holes as far away as Ton 618. Therefore, they claim that their findings may represent the largest black hole confirmed to date.
This story originally appeared in wired español and has been translated into Spanish.
