Astronomers spot heaviest black hole 36 billion times the size of sun

Scientists have recently discovered a monster black hole which is estimated to be 36 billion times the size of the sun, making it one of the heaviest ever found in the universe.

The recently identified massive black hole, known as the “dormant black hole" is located approximately 5 billion light years away within the Cosmic Horseshoe Galaxy.

The discovery of this ultramassive blackhole was based upon two parameters. The first one relies on the measurement of how gravity bends light, predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity and the second one tracks the motion of stars.

Collectively, these two techniques give insights into the unprecedented weight of the black hole.

The findings published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society called the object potentially the bigger and more extreme one as our Milky Way’s central black hole only holds the mass of about 4.15 million suns.

Study co-author Thomas Collett said: “This is amongst the top 10 most massive black holes ever discovered and quite possibly the most massive.”

“We think the size of both is intimately linked, because when galaxies grow they can funnel matter down onto the central blackhole. Some of this matter grows the black hole, but lots if it shines away in an incredibly bright source called a quasar,” Collett issued a statement.

According to Collett , this ultramassive black hole could be formed from the integration of two galaxies, demonstrating the end state of galaxy and black hole formation.