Biggest Black Hole Discoveries in History | Space Discoveries 2020

 black holes may vary in size and age but  one thing is for sure  they're hungry new black holes are being  discovered all the time  and there seems to be no realistic  limits to the size they can grow to  so what are some of the biggest welcome  to  and today we're  traveling to the event horizon in  10 biggest black holes  the black hole is a stellar remnant the  end result of a dying star that is so  dense that not even light can escape its  gravitational pull  some of these are as old as the universe  while others are being formed right this  second  not to worry though there is little risk  that the earth will be swallowed up by  one of these ravenous pits of infinite  eternity as the nearest black hole is  three and a half  thousand light years away this closest  neighbor isn't in our solar system but  it is in our own milky way galaxy and  it's called sagittarius a  it's a decent size totaling between one  and four million solar masses by our  best estimates  before we delve into the biggest and  baddest of the supermassive black holes  it first begs the question  what is a black hole capable of a brief  history  the concept of a black hole is a  relatively new one and we knew about  them well before we were about to  actually see one with our own two eyes  in 2019  back in 1915 einstein's general theory  of relativity described that both space  and time are intertwined  and how mass bends space time producing  gravity  a year later carl schwartz child offered  a solution to einstein's equations  noting that objects of sufficient mass  would have an escape velocity exceeding  the speed of light and would be unable  to be observed by their very nature  his work pointed towards the existence  of black holes and would later form the  basis of the first model of one fast  forward to 1939  einstein publishes a paper seeking to  prove that it was impossible for  celestial objects to be so dense that  their gravity prevents light from  escaping  j robert oppenheimer ironically used the  work of einstein and schwarzschild to  propose the first working concept  of a black hole that the continued  contraction of a dying star  under the influence of its own  gravitational field could in fact create  a body with an attraction force so  intense that light cannot escape  if his name seems familiar it's because  oppenheimer became the head of the  manhattan project  after being brought over from germany by  the allies under operation paperclip  his research would lead to the  development of atomic weapons  the planck particle it makes sense that  to explore how big black holes can get  we have to understand how small they can  be plank particles are extraordinarily  small black holes  and are thought to be 1.14 times 10 to  the power of -34 meters in diameter  if that number means nothing to you  think about a decimal point followed by  33 zeros  it's actually measured in a unit called  a planck length which is itself 1.6  times 10 to the power of minus 35  or the equivalent to something like a  millionth of a billionth of a billionth  of a billionth of a centimeter  this is the scale where quantum foam is  believed to exist  it's the weird realm of quantum physics  where laws are very different to our own  world  extremely minor wormholes open and close  constantly giving space a rapidly  changing  foam-like structure if we were ever able  to harness the limitless energy of  quantum foam  just one cubic centimeter of empty space  would be enough  to boil the earth's oceans  they fizzle out before one of these  plant particles approaches the earth  it's thought that the particle would  evaporate through a process called  hawking radiation  described by its namesake the great man  himself theoretical physicist and  candidate for the smartest man to ever  exist  stephen hawking though he passed away in  2018 perhaps his greatest legacy is  something so simple  taking a black hole's temperature using  a combination of einstein's theory of  relativity  and quantum mechanics he was able to  explain how both come into play at the  threshold of an event horizon  the point in a black hole where light  cannot escape hawking radiation is the  very slight glow  a thermal release spontaneously emitted  by a black hole  relative to its mass and gravity it is a  byproduct of the conversion of quantum  vacuum fluctuations into pairs of  particles  one being expelled by the black hole and  a matching anti-particle being driven  into it  the release of this radiation reduces  the mass and energy of black holes ever  so slightly  regular-sized black holes dissolve so  slowly that their lifespan would likely  exceed the time taken to find the  nearest black hole and combine with it  a black hole with a singular soul and  mass will last 10 to the power of 67  years  an extremely long time supermassive  black holes can take up to 10 to the  power of 100 years to dissolve  however micro black holes likely don't  last that long but we can't know for  sure until we find one  how big are they so to put it simply  black holes are measured using a very  familiar scale  a solar mass or the equivalent mass to  our own system's sun  it's not until you understand this  concept that the sheer scale of a black  hole becomes apparent  it's easy to dismiss the large numbers  associated with the size of a black hole  until you realize that every one of  those units  is the mass of our sun this is our life  giver  a gigantic ball of heat and light that  gave birth to life on this planet  and continues to support whole  ecosystems through the energy that  plants absorb and turn into food  at its center the gravity is so great  that hydrogen gas is compressed on all  sides so tightly that four hydrogen  nuclei are squeezed together to form one  helium atom  in a process called nuclear fusion this  is the exact same process that causes  the intense release of light  heat energy and radiation from the  detonation of a thermonuclear bomb  the biggest nuke ever detonated by the  united states produced a crater  two kilometers wide and 75 meters deep  within the sun's core the energy  produced every second  is the equivalent of detonating 15  million of our biggest nukes  eventually the hydrogen is used up and  the nuclear fusion rate slows down  enough so that the gravity causes the  sun to start collapsing  resulting in a newly formed black hole a  stellar black hole is in the range of 10  to the power of 100 solar masses  anything bigger than that is considered  supermassive and can be as big as  millions or even billions of solar  masses  these are measured by observing the full  orbit of a circling star  it has been hypothesized that it's  theoretically possible that an  intermediate mass black hole can exist  and that weighs hundreds of thousands of  solar masses however  we are yet to see them any black hole  that is less than a tenth of a  millimeter in size  is considered a micro black hole and can  be as small as one planck particle  these are the primordial class of black  hole and as any with mass less than a  single solar mass  could only have been formed during the  beginning of time the big bang  for a primordial hole to survive today  it would have to contain a couple of  billion tons of mass  inside a radius the size of a nucleus of  an atom or smaller  how are they measured supermassive black  holes have enough mass and gravity to  hold entire galaxies together and even  attract other galaxies towards them even  if it's done extremely slowly over  millions of years  because they are so far away and they  don't emit light it gets a little tricky  to estimate their mass  by looking at the spin and the charge of  surrounding gas as it swallowed up  scientists can determine in nearby black  holes mass so which ones are big enough  to influence the movement of whole  galaxies  full of stars with orbiting planets    number 10 ngc 4889  2.1 times 10 to the power of 10 solar  masses  a former quasar star this black hole now  has a mass of 21 billion solar masses  over 5 200 times the size of sagittarius  a  the black hole in the milky way galaxy  the diameter of its event horizon is  anywhere from 20 to 124 billion  kilometers  putting the mouth between two and twelve  times the distance of pluto's orbit  around the sun  it's a slumbering giant as there is  evidence new stars are forming around  its margins  number nine apm zero eight two seven  nine plus five  two five five two 2.3 multiplied by 10  to the power of 10 solar masses  this black hole tips the scales at 23  billion solar masses and is surrounded  by the largest and most distant  reservoir of water ever detected  in the known universe there is so much  water here that it's enough to fill the  earth's oceans more than a hundred  trillion times  number eight ngc 6166  three multiplied by ten to the power of  ten solar masses  located in the able cluster in the  constellation of hercules this black  hole is one of the most luminous sources  of x-rays seen anywhere in the universe  unusually it's at the center of its  galaxy and appears to exhibit a blue  shift  meaning this 30 billion solar mass giant  is actually moving towards earth  number seven h1821 plus 643  3 multiplied by 10 to the power of 10  solar masses  back in 2014 this was considered the  most massive of all known black holes  also a 30 billion solar mass dead quasar  the schwarzschild  envelope diameter is greater than the  margins of our own solar system  number six sdss hyphen j102325.31  hyphen 514251.0  3.31 multiplied by 10 to the power of 10  solar masses  this black hole is unique in the fact  that it has a smaller neighboring black  hole in its galaxy that it will  eventually meet with  and absorb becoming bigger still it only  exists  as the result of an estimation of an  emission line equation from the quasar  mg2 despite this we do know that it's  33.1 billion solar masses  but not much else number five smss  hyphen j215728.21  hyphen 360 215.1  3.4 multiplied by 10 to the power of 10  solar masses  this black hole is regarded as one of  the most powerful quasars  and the fastest growing it's feeding its  34 billion solar mass frame at an  astounding rate  and growing so rapidly that the sheer  volume of gas it sucks in on a daily  basis  causes a luminous hawking radiation  effect that shines thousands of times as  bright as an entire galaxy  number four s5 hyphen zero zero  one four plus eight one four multiplied  by ten to the power of ten solar masses  categorized as a blazer this 40 billion  solar mass black hole is one of the most  powerful objects in the universe  putting out an energy of 10 to the power  of 41 watts while being 25  000 times as luminous as the 400 billion  stars in the milky way combined  it would give out the same energy per  square meter as our sun  even if it were almost 18 million times  further away  number three ic hyphen one one zero one  four minus ten multiplied by ten to the  power of ten solar masses  this black hole comes from the largest  known galaxy in our universe  the star formation in this area is very  low due to an elliptical orbit  making estimations of the black hole  size challenging and putting it into the  range of 40 to 100 billion solar masses  the black hole itself is an intense  emitter of radio waves  number two homburg 15a four minus 4.8  multiplied by 10 to the power of 10  solar masses  with an estimated mass of between 40 and  48 billion of our own suns  this black hole surprised scientists  when they surveyed its size it was nine  times larger than they expected  relative to the stellar mass of its  surrounding galaxy making it a big fish  in a small pond number one t-o-n hyphen  6-1-8  6.6 multiplied by 10 to the power of 10  solar masses  the biggest of them all it's a mouthful  technically classed as a hyperluminous  broad absorption line radio loud quasar  it shines with the light of 140 trillion  suns  and has a diameter of 780 billion  kilometers  more than 40 times the size of neptune's  orbit