A monster black hole that “should not even exist” was discovered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Scientists at the National Astronomical Observatory of China found the black hole with mass 70 times greater than the Sun and is located 15 thousand light years from Earth.
The discovery was reported by the scientists in Nature magazine. Up until now, the largest known blackhole had a mass that was 20 times that of the Sun, according to scientists.
“Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution,” said Prof Liu, who headed the team which made the discovery.
“LB-1 [what the black hole has been named] is twice as massive as what we thought possible. Now theorists will have to take up the challenge of explaining its formation,” the scientist said.
There are many black holes in space — spaces where the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing can escape. Massive black holes are said to exist in multiple other galaxies. Prior to the discovery of LB-1, the largest known black hole had been discovered in the Milky Way, with a mass 20 times that of the Sun.
The Milky Way is estimated to have about 100 million blackholes, and about two dozen stellar black holes have a mass between five and 20 times that of the Sun. These are usually formed after supernova explosions, when a star collapses.
On the other hand, there are supermassive black holes, and scientists have yet to determine how these are formed.
"This discovery forces us to re-examine our models of how stellar-mass black holes form," said Prof David Reitze, the director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) from the University of Florida.