Astronomers Weigh Heaviest Black Hole Yet

[n2doc]

By Lisa Grossman January 12, 2011 | 11:46 pm |

SEATTLE — The black hole in the nearby galaxy M87 weighs in at 6.6 billion suns, making it the local universe’s heavyweight champ.

“This is the biggest black hole in the nearby universe,” said astronomer Karl Gebhardt of the University of Texas at Austin in a press conference today here at the American Astronomical Society meeting.

The behemoth’s bulk, plus the fact that it lives just 50 million light-years away, makes M87 the best candidate for future efforts to take a direct image of a black hole’s event horizon for the first time.

“In terms of the largest galaxies, it really is in our backyard,” Gebhardt said. “Being so close to such a massive black hole allows us a remarkable chance to study what happens around a black hole.”

more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/heavy-black-hole/

[TupperHappy]

1. I think the proper description would be that it has a *mass* of 6.6 billion suns.

It weighs nothing.