ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN DE MODE
Article Published on: 22ND MARÂ 2025 | www.demodemagazine.com
NASA astronomers have identified an ultramassive black hole with a staggering mass of 36 billion suns, ranking it among the largest ever recorded. The discovery was made in the Cosmic Horseshoe, a system of two galaxies in the Leo constellation.
First observed in 2007, the Cosmic Horseshoe features LRG 3-757, a galaxy 100 times more massive than the Milky Way. Surrounding it is an Einstein ring—light from a distant galaxy magnified and distorted by gravitational lensing. By analyzing this effect and the movement of stars, researchers confirmed that a black hole of immense scale is essential to explain their observations.
This finding adds LRG 3-757’s black hole to the list of record-breaking giants, alongside Ton 618 (66 billion solar masses) and Holm 15A (44 billion solar masses). These celestial behemoths span distances up to 40 times that of Neptune’s orbit, reshaping our understanding of the universe’s most extreme objects.