Astronomers reported this week that they may have spotted the signature of one of the largest black holes ever detected, a cosmic giant with the mass of about 30 billion suns. A supermassive black hole located in part of the Abell 1201 galaxy cluster was detected using a combination of gravitational lensing and supercomputer simulations. First, astronomers observed how images of other, more distant objects seen by the Hubble Space Telescope were distorted by vast gravitational wells produced by black holes. They compared the images to thousands of supercomputer-generated simulations and found that simulations involving supermassive black holes matched real-world images. This work was reported in the monthly journal of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Vox staff writer Umair Irfan joins Kathleen Davis on SciFri for discoveries and more from Science Week, including FDA approval of Narcan for over-the-counter sales, the real-world challenges of EV charging, and making talk about stories. Meatballs made from mammoths.
further exploration
- Browse our Zooniverse projects to help discover, identify, and explain other objects in the universe. This is an online research platform that helps everyday people advance science through image classification.
- Learn more about what experts call lab-grown meat, ‘cellular agriculture’
