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Astronomers spot the biggest, strangest black hole collision ever found
Is there a limit to how big a black hole can get?
MORE THAN SEVEN billion years ago, two immense black holes circled each other until they collided and merged, a cataclysm so intense that it sent ripples soaring through the fabric of space-time. In the early morning hours of May 21, 2019, Earth trembled from the vibrations sent off by this distant carnage, cluing in astronomers to the biggest cosmic bang they’d ever detected—and one that defies theoretical expectation.
Researchers estimate that two black holes 66 and 85 times more massive than our sun spiraled into each other, uniting to form a black hole 142 times more massive than our sun.
That amount of energy is like setting off more than a million billion atomic bombs every second for 13.8 billion years, the age of the observable universe.
Is there a limit to how big a black hole can get?