Image of the disk galaxy (lenticular galaxy) NGC 1277, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. This small, flattened galaxy contains one of the biggest central super-massive black holes ever found in its center. With the mass of 17 billion Suns, the black hole weighs in at an extraordinary 14% of the total galaxy mass. (Credit: NASA/ESA /Andrew C. Fabian/Remco C. E. van den Bosch (MPIA))
A group of astronomers led by Remco van den Bosch from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) havediscovered a black hole that could shake the foundations of current models of galaxy evolution.
At 17 billion times the mass of the Sun, its mass is much greater than current models predict — in particular in relation to the mass of its host galaxy. This could be the most massive black hole found to date.
To the best of our astronomical knowledge, almost every galaxy should contain in its central region what is called a supermassive black hole: a black hole with a mass between that of hundreds of thousands and billions of Suns. The best-studied super-massive black hole sits in the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, with a mass of about four million Suns./.../
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