Scientists use new technique to detect one of the largest black holes ever observed

Astronomers have discovered and measured one of the largest black holes ever observed using a new technique that should reveal more information about the thousands of these cosmic giants expected to be discovered in the coming years.

This supermassive black hole has a mass 30 billion times that of the sun, according to a study published this week in the scientific journal of the British Royal Astronomical Society.

This is the first object whose characteristics are determined using the gravitational lens detection method.

This phenomenon is caused by the presence of an object so massive – a galaxy or a supermassive black hole – that it warps space-time. Therefore, light coming from a distant source appears distorted when passing near.

But while we can see a galaxy, we literally can’t see a black hole. The peculiarity of this cosmic object is that it is so dense that even light cannot escape, which makes it invisible.

This time, the astronomers were “very lucky,” James Nightingale, an astronomer at the University of Durham in the UK and the first author of the study, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

They were able to observe the light of a galaxy far behind the black hole, whose path seemed to be deflected by the black hole about two billion light-years from Earth.

It is said that most galaxies have a black hole at the center, but until now, to detect their presence, it was necessary to observe the bursts of energy they produce by absorbing matter that dared to get too close, or by observing their effect on the trajectory of the galaxy. stars revolving around it.

However, these methods only work for black holes close enough to Earth.

The gravitational lensing technique allows astronomers to “detect black holes in 99% of galaxies currently inaccessible” to conventional observation because they are so far away, the astronomer said.

There are about 500 gravitational lenses, but according to James Nightingale, “this picture is about to change dramatically.”

The European Space Agency’s Euclid mission, due to launch in July, will usher in an “era of big data”. [megadados]”for black hole hunters who create a high-resolution map of part of the universe,” the scientist added.

Over six years of observations, Euclid could detect up to 100,000 gravitational lenses, including potentially several thousand black holes, Nightingale says.

The discovery, made by the astronomer and his colleagues, was based on computer simulations and images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

These observations support and explain simulations conducted 18 years ago by Durham University astronomer and James Nightingale colleague Alastair Edge, who suspected a black hole at the center of the Abell 1201 galaxy.

DMS // RBF

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