Supermassive black holes not so massive say scientists

“Supermassive” black holes may not be as enormous as once assumed, scientists have reported.

Astronomers told the media on Thursday that, following a breakthrough study of a distant quasar, an extremely bright, active core of a very distant galaxy, the supermassive black hole at its heart has a mass that is equal to “only” about one billion suns, making it one-10th of what was assumed.

A team from the University of Southampton, working with European colleagues, observed the galaxy, more than 12 billion light years away, using state-of-the-art equipment at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile.

“Despite the quasar’s extreme luminosity, the black hole at its heart was found to have a mass equal to ‘only’ around one billion suns,” Associate Professor Christian Wolf told ANU Rep