'Cosmic Horseshoe' may contain black hole the size of 36 billion suns -- one of the largest ever detected

By Ben Turner
published 2 days ago

The "Cosmic Horseshoe" is an Einstein ring, a system made up of a foreground galaxy whose mass is so great, it warps the light from a galaxy behind it. Now, astronomers know where it gets this mass from.



A Hubble Space Telescope image of LRG 3-757, known as the "Cosmic Horseshoe". (Image credit: NASA, ESA)

Astronomers have discovered an enormous black hole the size of 36 billion suns lurking within the "Cosmic Horseshoe." The behemoth object is one of the largest black holes ever detected.

First discovered in 2007, the Cosmic Horseshoe is a system of two galaxies located in the constellation Leo. Images of the system show a halo of light surrounding the foreground galaxy, LRG 3-757. This phenomenon, known as an Einstein ring, occurs when the significant mass of the galaxy warps and magnifies light from an even more distant galaxy behind it.

This type of magnification is called gravitational lensing and was first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1915. Now, new research has revealed just how LRG 3-757 gets the mass required to bend light: from a monstrous ultramassive black hole sitting in its center. The researchers published their findings Feb. 19 on the preprint server arXiv, so they have not been peer-reviewed yet.

Einstein's theory of general relativity describes the way massive objects warp the fabric of the universe, called space-time. Gravity, Einstein discovered, isn't produced by an unseen force but by space-time curving and distorting in the presence of matter and energy.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/space/black-holes/cosmic-horseshoe-may-contain-black-hole-the-size-of-36-billion-suns-one-of-the-largest-ever-detected