By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, Austin
Astronomers have weighed the biggest known black hole in the Universe. The monster celestial object is 18 billion times more massive than our own Sun, says a team from Finland - six times larger than the previous record.
The object, called OJ287, is orbited by a smaller black hole, which allowed its mass to be measured very accurately. The finding also enabled the researchers to test Einstein's theory of gravity for the first time in a strong gravitational field. Details of the finding were presented at the 211th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Austin, Texas. The binary black hole system powers a quasar - a compact halo of matter which radiates enormous amounts of energy. It emits a pulsing light signal, with two major pulses every 12 years. From this, astronomers were able to construct models to predict the arrival of the pulses.For full details see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7181877.stm
(Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/)
