The discovery was possible thanks to a new phenomenon called gravitational lensing
Scientists from Durham University have discovered one of the largest black holes ever detected in the universe, and it’s 32.7 billion times bigger than the Sun.
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Black holes are “rare and elusive,” even though they’re the largest objects in the universe and can measure anywhere between 10 billion and 40 billion times the mass of the Sun, reported The Herald.
This “gargantuan black hole”, at the centre of galaxy Abell 1021, is one of the biggest ever found, and with the use of the gravitational lensing, Durham scientists, led by Dr James Nightingale, were able to discover just how big the black hole actually is.
Gravitational lensing is a “dramatic and observable example of Einstein’s theory [of relativity]”, according to ESA Hubble, that causes light produced from a celestial body to bend around a black hole or a galaxy. The larger the mass of the object, the more the light will bend around it.
The scientists “conducted hundreds of thousands of of simulations of light moving through the Universe, altering the mass of the black hole at the galaxy’s centre, looking for results that replicate the lensing we observe with Abell 1021”, said ScienceAlert.
The size they discovered put this “cosmic colossus” as the website described it, in the top 10 largest black holes ever discovered.
Most black holes that we know about today can be seen because they pull in matter, and release “energy in the form of light, X-rays and other radiation”, said the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).
However, without the visuals of warped light, inactive black holes were unable to be seen, until now.
Gravitational lensing allows scientists to measure black holes without activity, which can help “us detect many more”, added the RAS, as well as revealing “how these exotic objects evolved further back in cosmic time”.
