According to Live Science, using a simulated model, researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics created a black hole with a mass 300 billion times that of our Sun.
The simulation aimed to find the origin of the supermassive black holes located at the centers of galaxies, which can have a mass 10 billion times that of the Sun. In addition to the known supermassive black holes, scientists sometimes come across ones that exceed human imagination. These objects are often referred to as the heaviest entities in the universe.
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Simulation of the Three-Star System Merger Conducted by Harvard-Smithsonian. (Photo: Harvard-Smithsonian)
A notable example occurred in 2019 when scientists observed the collision of three galaxies, with their supermassive black holes at the centers, in the system SDSS J084905.51+111447.2. The collision took place nearly 1 billion light-years away from Earth. To observe such phenomena, astronomers utilized both ground-based and space-based telescopes.
Using a high-resolution universe simulation called ASTRID, the Harvard-Smithsonian research team modeled the evolution of the universe approximately 11 billion years ago. In the simulation, they witnessed the formation of an extremely massive black hole resulting from the merger of three galaxies. Each galaxy contained its own central supermassive black hole, which attracts matter and emits incredibly powerful radiation, surpassing the combined brightness of all stars in their host galaxies.
When the trio of central black holes encountered each other, they merged into an even larger black hole, triggering an intense process of “mad” matter accretion, allowing the combined object to reach a supermassive state.
“We have discovered a very rare system that contains a trio of central black holes at the ‘lunchtime’ of the universe – around 11 billion years ago when galaxies and supermassive black holes reached their peak activity,” said Dr. Yueying Ni, the lead researcher of the study.
“This system consists of three active galactic nuclei powered by supermassive black holes, with each galaxy in this ensemble being ten times the mass of our Milky Way galaxy,” he added.
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Supermassive black holes on a collision course as three galaxies collide in the SDSS J084905.51+111447.2 star system. (Photo: NASA)
Supercomputer simulations revealed that the merging process of the trio of galaxies with their supermassive black holes lasted for 150 million years and resulted in the largest black hole in the entire simulation. Its mass was over 300 billion times that of our Sun, surpassing the combined mass of all stars in the Milky Way.
According to Dr. Yueying Ni, the combination of the three-galaxy system and the collision event is extremely rare. This explains why scientists have not yet discovered such occurrences or been able to observe the formation of a supermassive black hole through such an event.
The research conducted by the Harvard-Smithsonian team was published in the Astrophysical Journal on November 30, 2022.