MOST MASSIVE BLACK HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE

The most massive black hole known weighs in at 6.6 billion Sun's. This gargantuan black hole resides in the center of the elliptical galaxy M87. The enormous mass is the heaviest ever measured for an object of its kind using a direct technique. The supermassive black hole is about 54 million light-years from Earth. While that may seem distant it's actually the closest black hole of its weight class to our planet. Given its size, it is likely the best candidate for future studies to actually see a black hole for the first time ever. The researchers "weighed" it by probing the motions of stars around its center. This black hole in M87 is so huge that astronomers someday may be able to detect its "event horizon" (its edge beyond which nothing can escape, not even light). The event horizon of this behemoth is about three times larger than the orbit of Pluto, researchers said. That's big enough to swallow our solar system whole. The event horizon is massive enough to be imaged by future telescopes though the technology to do so does not currently exist. Astronomers could employ a worldwide network of submillimeter telescopes to look for the shadow of the event horizon on a disc of gas that surrounds M87's supermassive black hole.