Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole record at an unprecedented place. The object weighing more than 18 billion solar masses is located in a relatively empty area of the universe.
Black holes are like celebrities – the bigger they are, the greater the activity around them. Supermassive black hole is located in the center of elliptical galaxy NGC 1600. Around such a massive object should be much more stars, which here simply do not observe. The black hole is located in the “cosmic void”, a group of only 20 galaxies. It is worth noting that a supermassive black hole with the largest known modern astronomy mass of 21 billion solar masses is located in a crowded galaxy cluster Coma and consists of more than 1,000 galaxies.
The black hole at the center of elliptical galaxy NGC 1600 was found in MASSIVE part of the program, the aim of which is to study the most massive black holes in the universe. The discovery of a supermassive black hole weighing more than 10 billion solar masses in a crowded region of space is nothing new, but finds such as NGC 1600 hit very rarely. It is as if hit on a skyscraper in the Sahara.
Scientists have developed a correlation between the central bulge of the galaxy – a bulge of stars at the center of the galaxy – and the accompanying black holes. The larger the black hole, the greater is the cosmic company. In the case of NGC 1600 the mass of a black hole far exceeds that of the relatively small bulge. It is 10 times more massive than the black hole, which would be expected in such a galaxy.
One theory explaining why the supermassive black hole apparently breaks the force of law in astronomy, says that probably it merged with another black hole long ago. A growing black hole is constantly needs fuel, so sucks in the ambient air stars. Supermassive black hole NGC 1600 is located approx. 200 million light years from Earth. Such objects in the universe is probably much more, they are only difficult to observe.
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