The biggest black hole in the famous Universe

A black hole arises as a result of the collapse of a supermassive star, in the core of which a "fuel" for a nuclear reaction ends. As it compresses, the core temperature rises, and photons with an energy of more than 511 keV, colliding, form electron-positron pairs, which leads to a catastrophic decrease in pressure and further collapse of the star under the influence of its own gravity.

Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel published an article entitled “The Largest Black Hole in the Known Universe,” which collected information on the mass of black holes in different galaxies. Just wondering: where is the most massive of them?

Since the most dense clusters of stars are in the center of galaxies, now almost every galaxy in the center has a massive black hole formed after the merger of many others. For example, in the center of the Milky Way there is a black hole with a mass of about 0.1% of our galaxy, that is, 4 million times the mass of the Sun.

It is very easy to determine the presence of a black hole by studying the trajectory of the stars, which are affected by the gravity of an invisible body.



But the Milky Way is a relatively small galaxy, which in no way can have the largest black hole. For example, not far from us in the Virgo cluster is a giant galaxy Messier 87 - it is about 200 times larger than ours.

So, a stream of matter about 5,000 light-years long erupts from the center of this galaxy (pictured). This is a crazy anomaly, writes Ethan Siegel, but it looks very beautiful.



Scientists believe that the explanation for such an “eruption” from the center of the galaxy can only be a black hole. The calculation shows that the mass of this black hole is about 1,500 times greater than the mass of the black hole in the Milky Way, that is, about 6.6 billion solar masses.

But where is the largest black hole in the universe? Based on the calculation that in the center of almost every galaxy there is such an object with a mass of 0.1% of the mass of the galaxy, then you need to find the most massive galaxy. Scientists can give an answer to this question.

The most massive known to us is the galaxy IC 1101in the center of the Abell 2029 cluster, which is 20 times farther from the Milky Way than the Virgo cluster.



In IC 1101, the distance from the center to the farthest edge is about 2 million light years. Its size is twice as large as the distance from the Milky Way to the nearest Andromeda galaxy to us. The mass is almost equal to the mass of the entire cluster of Virgo!

If there is a black hole in the center of IC 1101 (and it should be there), then it may be the most massive in the Universe known to us.

Ethan Siegel says he might be wrong. The reason is the unique galaxy NGC 1277. This is not a very large galaxy, slightly smaller than ours. But the analysis of its rotation showed an incredible result: the black hole in the center is 17 billion solar masses, and this is already 17% of the total mass of the galaxy. This is a record for the ratio of the mass of a black hole to the mass of a galaxy.



There is another candidate for the role of the largest black hole in the known Universe. He is shown in the following photo.



The strange object of OJ 287 is called blazar . Blazars are a special class of extragalactic objects, a variety of quasars. They differ in very powerful radiation, which in OJ 287 changes with a cycle of 11-12 years (with a double peak).

According to astrophysicists, OJ 287 includes a supermassive central black hole, the orbit of which rotates another smaller black hole. The central black hole of 18 billion solar masses is the largest known to date.



This pair of black holes will be one of the best experiments to test the general theory of relativity, namely, the deformation of space-time described in GR.

Due to the relativistic effects of the perihelion of the black hole, that is, the point of the orbit closest to the center black hole should shift by 39 ° in one revolution! For comparison, the perihelion of Mercury has shifted by only 43 arcseconds per century.