The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, oversees the Chandra program’s scientific and air operations. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

M. Mezcua, J. Hlavacek-Larrondo, J. R. Lucey, M. T. Hogan, A. C. Edge and B. R. McNamara, “The most massive black holes on the fundamental plane of black hole accretion”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, February 11, 2018. “We do know that black holes are extraordinary phenomena,” Hlavacek-Larrondo added, “so it’s no surprise that the most extreme specimens defy the rules that we have established up until now.” “Are they so big because they had a head start or because certain ideal conditions allowed them to grow more rapidly over billions of years? For the moment, there is no way for us to know.” “We have discovered black holes that are far larger and way more massive than anticipated,” Mezcua pointed out. This puts them in a class of extreme heavyweights that certain astronomers call “ultramassive black holes.” Furthermore, almost half of the sample’s black holes are estimated to be at least 10 billion times more massive than our sun. The results showed that the masses of ultramassive black holes are roughly 10 times greater than those originally projected calculated using a different method which assumes that black holes grow in tandem with their galaxies. The team of astronomers calculated the masses of black holes detected in these galaxy clusters by analyzing their radio wave and X-ray emissions. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, time flows more slowly in strong gravitational fields, like those of these gargantuan celestial objects.” The most fascinating thing about black holes is how they distort time around them. “A black hole is most often created when a massive star dies and collapses on itself. “A black hole is an invisible celestial object whose gravitational pull is so strong that neither matter nor light can escape it – it swallows everything in its path like a bottomless vortex,” explained Professor Hlavacek-Larrondo, who also holds the Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics of Black Holes. In their search for black holes, the two lead authors of the article published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society – Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo, professor in the Department of Physics at Université de Montréal, and Mar Mezcua, postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Space Sciences in Spain – studied 72 galaxies located at the centre of the universe’s brightest and most massive galaxy clusters. The team’s calculations showed that these “ultramassive” black holes are growing faster than the stars in their respective galaxies. But this supermassive black hole, as large as it is, could still fit within our solar system with plenty of room to spare.Thanks to data collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope on galaxies up to 3.5 billion light years away from Earth, an international team of astrophysicists was able to detect what is likely to be the most massive black holes ever discovered in the universe. It's 24 billion miles across and contains the same mass as 6 1/2 billion suns. It measures 2 billion miles across, so it would stretch further than Uranus' orbit, and it has about the same mass as 660 million suns.Īnd the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87 is so huge that astronomers could see it from 55 million light-years away. So let's look at the supermassive black hole at the center of the Sombrero galaxy. We're finally getting to some of the largest black holes in the universe, and yet we haven't reached one that surpasses the size of our solar system. Take the one at the center of our neighbor the Andromeda galaxy, which has a diameter of 516 million miles, larger than Jupiter's orbit, and contains enough mass to equal that of 140 million suns. Now that may sound big, but Sagittarius A* is small compared to other supermassive black holes. That's roughly 168 Jupiters across, and inside is the same amount of mass as 4 million suns combined. It covers a region about 14.6 million miles in diameter. But these black holes are nothing compared to supermassive black holes, like Sagittarius A*, which lives at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Ultramassive black hole