Real cosmic monsters! If black holes evoke fear, their more massive brethren make us glad that we are at a safe distance. What kind of supermassive black hole has become the hardest and where to look for it?
Universe Heavyweights
Dependence between the mass of a black hole and the mass of a bulge
The black hole refers to an unusual piece of space-time with incredibly strong gravity. It is so powerful that even at the speed of light it is impossible to get out (this also applies to the light itself). Usually these objects cover only several tens of kilometers in parameters and are able to grow in the process of active feeding.
Black holes also have variations, determined by the amount of mass. The largest heavyweights are called supermassive black holes. This is the category of black holes, whose massiveness reaches 10 5 -10 10 solar.
No one can say exactly how exactly they appear in space. Most supporters of the idea of gradual growth. That is, the black hole of stellar mass first appears and in the process of a dense and long dinner it “gets fatter”. There is also a thought that first a relativistic star arises from the collapse of large gas cloud structures. Such an object is devoid of stability, so with a giant mass it immediately falls into a black hole, missing a supernova explosion. These are the two most common theories.
Candidates for championship
Size of the largest known black hole
On the territory of the constellation of Cancer with a distance of 3.5 billion light years, you can find the quasar OJ 287, whose mass reaches 18 billion solar! By the way, this is a dual system, so the smaller black hole in mass approaches 100 million solar.
In the center of the Phoenix cluster it will be possible to detect an incredibly vigorous supermassive black hole. It is already 20 billion times more massive than the Sun and increases every year at a speed of 60 solar masses.
Another monster is located in the center of a large-scale galaxy of the elliptical type NGC 1277. You need to search in the territory of the Perseus constellation. Its massiveness reaches 21 billion solar! The event horizon line covers 130 billion km (15 times the distance from the Sun to Neptune). The only good thing is that now she has no food, because she “sleeps”.
Supermassive leader
Comparative size of a supermassive black hole TON 618
Who was in the first place? New discoveries and information are constantly changing the characteristics of space objects. But according to the 2018 data, the first place in terms of massiveness with an indicator of 66 billion solar masses is the object TON 618. He lives in the Hounds of the Dogs at a distance of 10.37 billion light years from us
Supermassive black hole lurking in the galactic center. The galaxy cannot be studied due to the glow of the super-bright quasar. By the way, this black hole is considered not only the most massive, but it still holds the championship as the most distant. Because of the mass of 66 billion solar cells, this supermassive black hole belongs to the class “ultramassive”.
Postscript
For comparison, a probable supermassive black hole also lives in our galactic center - Sagittarius A *. So, by massiveness, it reaches a little more than 4 million solar and is 26000 light years away from us.
