The most massive black hole ever observed with a mass of 32.7 billion times that of the sun has been observed by gravitational lensing.
A research team at Durham University in England announced on the 1st that an ultramassive black hole was identified for the first time in outer space about 2.7 billion light years away from Earth through an official channel.
This monster black hole, which was also revealed through the journal ‘Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society’ on the 29th of last month, boasts an enormous presence with a mass more than 30 billion times that of the sun.
This black hole is located in the galaxy cluster ‘Abell 1201’. The research team used gravitational lensing to identify this monster black hole, which is considered to be the limit in theory.
A celestial black hole, where infinite contraction takes place, cannot escape even light because of its enormous gravity. Black holes, which even people who are not interested in the universe must have heard of at least once, lead to a mystery in their very existence.
First of all, black holes do not emit light, and they are very far away and are mainly observed through indirect methods. Since the process is not simple, the discovery of a black hole is of great interest, and the research team emphasized that this supermassive black hole has two special meanings.
“This black hole is about 32.7 billion times the mass of the sun, and is the largest among those confirmed so far,” said an official of the investigation.
“It is also noteworthy that a monstrous black hole of this magnitude was first discovered by gravitational lensing,” he said. told
Gravitational lensing, predicted in Einstein’s general theory of relativity, is a phenomenon in which space-time is distorted by the enormous mass of a celestial body, distorting the direction of the light propagation of the opposite celestial body. The light is distorted like a lens, hence the name gravitational lens.
An official of the investigation said, “The gravitational lensing effect is a natural telescope that allows us to identify celestial bodies that are too far away or too dark to observe by conventional methods.” In fact, a celestial body that appears to be a single star about 12.9 billion light years in front was discovered using gravitational lensing recently. “he said.
A video showing the process of identifying a monster black hole through gravitational lensing
In the case of a very heavy object, such as a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies, the space-time around it can be distorted by its mass. Clusters of galaxies usually contain the brightest galaxies (BCG) within them. In the case of ‘Abell 1201’, BCG created a gravitational lens.
In the process of analyzing the light passing through this gravitational lens, the research team calculated the mass of the celestial body behind it, and the existence of a monster black hole 32.7 billion times that of the sun was revealed. An official from the investigation said, “Observation of very distant objects using gravitational lensing has been active recently, and the identification of the largest black hole ever demonstrated the infinite possibilities of gravitational lensing.”
The research team expected to use gravitational lensing to find inert black holes, that is, celestial bodies that are difficult to detect by conventional methods because there is no material that can be swallowed and no radiation is emitted.
Reporter Jeong Ian [email protected]
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