Massive Black Hole Discovered in Cosmic Horseshoe Galaxy

A black hole with a mass 36 billion times that of our sun has been detected within the "Cosmic Horseshoe" galaxy system, located in the constellation Leo. This ultramassive black hole, one of the largest ever found, was identified through analysis of gravitational lensing data from the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer in Chile's Atacama Desert and images from the Hubble Space Telescope. The Cosmic Horseshoe, a system of two galaxies, creates an Einstein ring effect, where light from a distant galaxy is bent and magnified by the mass of the foreground galaxy, LRG 3-757. Researchers determined that the presence of such a massive black hole was necessary to reconcile the observed gravitational lensing and the movement of stars within LRG 3-757. The discovery raises questions about the black hole's formation, with theories suggesting past galactic mergers, extinguished jets, or rapid consumption of nearby stars. Future observations from the Euclid space telescope, which aims to map a third of the night sky, are expected to uncover thousands more gravitational lenses, potentially revealing insights into galaxy evolution and the interplay between baryonic and dark matter.