Record-breaking black holes discovered

An international team of scientists and astronomers have discovered a number of record-breaking black holes.

The black holes have masses 10 billion times that of the sun and are around 50 per cent greater than any other previously measured.

A team from the University of Toronto made the discovery by measuring the speed of stars orbiting these galaxies, which illustrates the gravitational pull of the black hole.

"Black holes inhabit the centres of nearly all galaxies − the centre of our very own Milky Way galaxy harbours a black hole four million times the mass of the sun − relatively speaking, a baby! But only a few dozens of these black holes have been 'weighed' carefully," said Professor James Graham, director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the university.

The revelation comes just days after scientists from the University of Nottingham proved that worms can survive for long periods in space.

Posted by Neil Clark