This Might Be the Most Massive Black Hole Ever Discovered

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 t