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13h ago

Dormant 36-Billion-Solar-Mass Black Hole Confirmed in Cosmic Horseshoe Galaxy

Combined gravitational lensing and stellar kinematics establish a benchmark for black hole growth; the Euclid mission will use this approach to map additional silent ultramassive giants.

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36 Billion Suns: Record Black Hole Discovery Could Be as Big as They Get
The Cosmic Horseshoe gravitational lens. The newly discovered ultramassive blackhole lies at the centre of the orange galaxy. Far behind it is a blue galaxy that is being warped into the horseshoe shaped ring by distortions in spacetime created by the immense mass of the foreground orange galaxy. Credit: NASA/ESA

Overview

  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society publication reports a quiescent black hole of about 36 billion solar masses at the center of SDSS J1148+1930, 5 billion light-years from Earth.
  • Researchers measured the mass by combining lensing distortions of background light with stellar kinematics showing star speeds of nearly 400 km/s for unprecedented precision.
  • At approximately 36 billion solar masses, the object nears the practical upper limit for black hole growth within the universe’s age and informs co-evolution models of galaxies and their nuclei.
  • The Cosmic Horseshoe is classified as a fossil group galaxy, formed by successive mergers of galaxies and their central black holes, illustrating hierarchical assembly.
  • European Space Agency’s Euclid mission will apply the dual-method technique in wide-field surveys to identify more dormant ultramassive black holes beyond active quasars.