Blackhole discoveries have been a favorite among astronomers. It seems as if they are not stopping their search for the best one. They continue to look into space, hopeful that they find a bigger black hole than the one that rests at the heart of the Milky Way.
Kianusch Mehrgan and his colleagues from the Max Planck Institute have announced that they found the biggest recorded blackhole at the center of the Holm 15A, another galaxy that is about 700 million light-years away from the Earth's galaxy.
The previous record-setter whose size is similar to 40 million times the mass of the Sun has been proven to be nothing compared to this newly discovered black hole that is more than twice its size. In fact, scientists have compared its scope to the massive black hole they've identified in the middle of the Milky Way Galaxy. They found out that the newly discovered black hole has 10,000 times more mass.
The team was able to identify it through the data they've gathered from the array of the Very Large Telescope. The wealth of data made available through the Chile Observatory helped them create a map of the structure of the Holm 15A in unprecedented detail. It has helped them run several simulations to explain the formation of the galaxy and the unusually faint center. Simply put, the newly discovered black hole is large and powerful with a radius of 790AU. It presents two possibilities as well -- either it swallowed up all the stars that used to float near it or tossed them to the edge of the galaxy.
Although it may seem as if its size may not make it the biggest of its kind, it is relatively bigger than the black holes that have ever been known to man. This distinction of the most prominent black hole ever discovered goes to quasar TON 618. Indirect studies have also cited the Sun's mass, suggesting that this newly discovered black hole is the size comparable to 66 billion times as the Sun's mass. It's gigantic that it is four to nine times bigger than what most astronauts expected.
This discovery can significantly expand the human understanding of space and the universe. Then, it would be able to make a rather clear comparison of humanity's understanding of the scale. Such discovery also proves helpful in identifying the fundamentals of galaxy formation.
