Some of the most monstrous black holes in the universe may be even more fearsome than we thought. Supermassive black holes typically have masses ranging from a few million to a few billion times that of our sun, but a new analysis using data from Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggests that some are between 10 and 40 billion times the mass of the sun – earning them the title 'ultramassive'. The black hole at the centre of this galaxy was part of the survey of 18 of the biggest known black holes in the universePhotograph: NASA