36 billion times heavier than the Sun: astronomers have found one of the most massive black holes (photo included).

In 2007, astronomers discovered a gravitational lensing system of galaxies known as the Cosmic Horseshoe. The mass of the closer galaxy, located 5.5 billion light-years away from us, enhances and distorts the image of a more distant galaxy, whose light has been traveling to us for over 10 billion years. The two galaxies are aligned so perfectly that a phenomenon known as the Einstein ring has emerged. Researchers studying the Cosmic Horseshoe found that at the center of the nearer galaxy lies an ultramassive black hole. Its mass is 36 billion times that of the Sun. Thus, it is one of the most massive black holes in the Universe known to date. The study has been published on the arXiv preprint server, reports ScienceAlert.

As early as 1936, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. This occurs when the mass of a galaxy closer to us bends and amplifies the light from a more distant galaxy. As a result, sometimes the image of the distant galaxy appears as a circle, which is referred to as the Einstein ring. In fact, such a ring has formed around the galaxy LRG 3-757, and it depicts an image of a more distant galaxy. The gravitational lensing system itself has been named the Cosmic Horseshoe, as the Einstein ring in this case is not closed and resembles a horseshoe.

The term "ultramassive black holes" is used to describe supermassive black holes at the centers of large galaxies, whose mass exceeds more than 5 billion times that of the Sun. Such a black hole, believed by scientists to have a mass 36 billion times greater than that of the Sun, is located at the center of a bright red galaxy emitting a lot of infrared light, known as LRG 3-757.

This galaxy has a mass that is 100 times greater than that of our Milky Way, making LRG 3-757 one of the most massive galaxies known to astronomers. At its center lies one of the most massive known black holes. Supermassive black holes and their masses are closely linked to their host galaxies through co-evolution. The new research further strengthens this connection.

Astronomers have focused their attention on the M-sigma relation. This relationship refers to the correlation between the mass of a supermassive black hole and the velocity dispersion of stars in the bulge of the galaxy (a spheroidal structure at the center of the galaxy with a high density of stars). The velocity dispersion (sigma) measures the speed of stars and how much it varies around the average speed. The higher the velocity dispersion, the faster and more chaotic the stars move.

When astronomers study galaxies, they find that the more massive the supermassive black hole, the greater the velocity dispersion. This relationship implies a deep connection between the evolution of galaxies and the growth of supermassive black holes.

The link between the mass of a supermassive black hole and the velocity dispersion of its galaxy is so strong that astronomers can estimate the mass of the supermassive black hole by measuring the velocity dispersion. However, the supermassive black hole in the Cosmic Horseshoe is more massive than what the M-sigma relation suggests. It is possible that some stars may have been ejected from the galaxy during past mergers with other galaxies, affecting the velocity dispersion.