Black holes are the densest objects in the universe, and among countless black holes there are strange objects that are self-contained. For example, astronomers recently discovered an ultramassive black hole (ultramassive black hole) that is 30 billion times heavier than the sun, and its mass is close to the theoretical upper limit .
In gravitational lensing, the gravitational field of a massive object “bends” the path of photons passing far away, revealing objects that were otherwise obscured or faint by background light. Last year, a team used gravitational lensing to discover the oldest known star . In the past, astronomers have also used this effect to discover astronomical phenomena such as distant supernovae, galaxies, and Einstein’s rings.
Recently, the Durham University team detected a black hole for the first time using the gravitational lensing effect technology. It is located near the center of the galaxy cluster Abell 1201 (Abell 1201), about 2.7 billion light-years away from the earth, and its mass scale is rarely 30 billion times that of the sun, which is equivalent to the Milky Way. The central supermassive black hole is more than 7,000 times larger.
Most of the supermassive black holes we know are in an active state. Due to the high-speed friction of the material close to the black hole, it heats up and releases energy in the form of light, X-rays, and other radiation, so that the black hole can be caught by the instrument. Gravitational lensing can help study inactive black holes, studying how they grow quietly.
According to “LiveScience”, the largest known black hole in the past is TON 618, with a mass of 40 billion times the sun and 10.37 billion light-years away from us. According to NASA, black holes with a mass between 10 billion and 40 billion times the sun can be classified as ultramassive black holes.
The new paper is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
(First image source: Hubble Space Telescope website)