Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Largest Black Hole Measured

Posted by kdawson on from the that's-no-moon dept.

porkpickle tips us to a BBC article on the quasar OJ287, a binary object containing largest black hole yet discovered, weighing in at 18 billion times the mass of Sol. Researchers were able to estimate its mass due to the presence of a smaller black hole in orbit around it. When the smaller companion's orbit intersects OJ287's accretion disk, once every 12 years, it triggers a burst of radiation that was detected by the Spitzer Space Telescope. More detail and a diagram are available on the Turku University site.

3 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Goatse? by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: -1, Redundant

    No, wait. He's a red giant.

  2. no pictures by juan2074 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Please keep the goatse.cx references to a minimum.

  3. largest black hole yet discovered by CodeBuster · · Score: -1, Redundant

    I thought that goatse.cx had that rather dubious distinction...