Astronomers discover black holes billions of times larger than the Sun

Located 750 million light-years away, a pair of supermassive black holes were discovered in a galaxy. Scientists are now investigating what could happen as these black holes collide.

28 Billion Times the Mass of the Sun

The combined mass of this colossal pair of black holes in the galaxy B2 0402+379 is estimated to be 28 billion times that of the sun's mass. While some black holes can individually surpass this figure, the recently discovered duo stands out as the heaviest pair of black holes known to date. Astronomers are exploring the potential outcomes of their union, leveraging various unique characteristics to do so.

The Mystery of Supermassive Black Holes

How these massive black holes reached their supermassive size remains a mystery. It is understood that smaller black holes form from the collapsed cores of stars. The growth of these star-sized black holes can occur through collisions with one another. By this logic, it can be inferred that supermassive black holes may also form through a similar process of collisions and mergers.

Archive data collected by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope has been analyzed by the team to understand the characteristics of these two large black holes. They discovered that the galaxy was once a group of galaxies that later collided, leading to the formation of a binary system with a black hole mass reaching a staggering 28 solar masses.