Astronomers just recently discovered that there are millions of undiscovered black holes residing across the milky way. We’re already aware that the gravitational acceleration in the black hole is so strong that not even light can escape it. And now scientists have found a gargantuan black hole, sized at about 40 billion times the mass of the Sun.

The black hole, named Holmberg 15A, is a supergiant elliptical galaxy which is around 700 million light-years away from Earth and resides right at the centre of the Abell 85 galaxy cluster. Holmberg 15A is one of the biggest black holes that’s ever been spotted by keeping track on the movement of stars around it. Researchers state that the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) of the cool-core cluster Abell 85, consists of an ultra-diffuse central region, which is 2 mag fainter than the faintest depleted core of any early-type galaxy (ETG) dynamically modelled.

Millions Of Undiscovered Black Holes Are Hiding In The Milky Way, Claim Researchers

Researchers also collected new photometric data at the Wendelstein observatory which confirms the existence of unusual, near-exponential light profile of the galaxy's core. “We use orbit-based, axisymmetric Schwarzschild models to analyse the stellar kinematics of Holm 15A from new high-resolution, wide-field spectral observations obtained with MUSE at the VLT. We find a supermassive black hole (SMBH) with a mass of (4.0 +- 0.80) x 10^10 solar masses at the center of Holm 15A”, states the researchers.

Holmberg 15A is also one of the most massive black hole comprising of a dynamical detection in the local universe. It was also compared with N-body simulations of mergers lying between galaxies with black holes. It was observed that the amount of tangential anisotropy along with the overall shape of the light profile are quite consistent with a formation scenario. It was found out that the black hole masses in cored galaxies, including Holm 15A, scale inversely with the central stellar surface brightness and mass density.

Astronomers Just Discovered An Extremely Old And Anaemic Star In The Universe

Researchers want to further continue studying the massive blackhole and conduct more complex and detailed modelling surrounding it. This, in turn, will help them figure out how exactly these black holes are formed and how many such massive blackholes are yet to be discovered.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Image for representation purpose only