Produced by: Manoj Kumar
A 36-billion-solar-mass black hole lurks in the Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy, making it one of the most massive ever detected. It’s rewriting what we know about black hole formation.
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The Cosmic Horseshoe’s perfect Einstein Ring is caused by gravitational lensing, where a massive foreground galaxy bends light from a distant one—revealing secrets of deep space.
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Scientists call black holes over 5 billion solar masses “Ultra-Massive Black Holes.” This one is nearly seven times larger than the biggest black holes in most galaxies.
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A black hole’s mass usually correlates with the speed of nearby stars, but this one defies the expected pattern, hinting at unknown cosmic forces at play.
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The host galaxy, LRG 3-757, may be a fossil group—a remnant of ancient galactic mergers that left it isolated, shaping the extreme black hole at its core.
When galaxies merge, their central black holes expel nearby stars, altering their growth. This process, called scouring, may explain why LRG 3-757’s black hole is so massive.
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Some UMBHs may have been hyper-luminous quasars in the early universe. If true, this black hole was once a cosmic beacon before settling into obscurity.
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The Euclid mission and upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will uncover thousands of gravitational lenses, leading to more record-breaking black hole finds.
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Does the biggest black hole form before or because of a massive galaxy? The Cosmic Horseshoe raises new questions about how these celestial giants evolve.
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