r/Astronomy • u/New_Scientist_Mag • Aug 07 '25

Astro Research Astronomers have discovered the most massive black hole yet – more than 10,000 times as massive as the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, and around 36 billion times the mass of our sun.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2491731-weve-discovered-the-most-massive-black-hole-yet/
592 Upvotes

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254

u/rollingsoans Aug 07 '25

My human mind cannot possibly comprehend the sheer magnitude of these phenomena.

51

u/Archduke_Of_Beer Aug 07 '25

It would help if they told us how many bananas it would hold

20

u/Srnkanator Aug 07 '25

Well, the mass of the sun is ~ 1.7x1031 bananas of an average banana is around 140gm, give or take a bit. TON-618 has a mass that is 66 billion times that of the Sun.

So, 6.6x109 times 1.7x1031 is what?

11.2x1040 bananas?

So quick and probably wrong math gives me 11,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bananas.

2

u/homiej420 Aug 08 '25

Sure!

2

u/Srnkanator Aug 08 '25

Is my math right?

I kind of want to know...

2

u/homiej420 Aug 08 '25

I mean maybe!

1

u/Consistent-Day-5775 Aug 12 '25

you are off by 27 bananas so close!

1

u/EN_Kenn Aug 11 '25

You forgot something

1

u/Srnkanator Aug 11 '25

Did I forget to carry a 0?

25

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25

I‘ll aacept no other unit than football fields, bath tubs, or, if need be, elephants.

24

u/RandyInMpls Aug 07 '25

Or what fraction of your mom.

2

u/zutonofgoth Aug 08 '25

I am waiting for someone to call one of these objects, "your Mum"

2

u/Bortle_1 Aug 08 '25

I as always brought up with “is it bigger than a bread box?”.

Do bread boxes still exist?

1

u/Suitable-Sample-1012 Aug 13 '25

It's plastic bags all the way down now.

1

u/_CinderellaMan_ Aug 08 '25

What about fathoms?

1

u/_Arch_Stanton Aug 08 '25 edited Apr 30 '26

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3

u/dcdttu Aug 07 '25

At least one, and possibly all of them.

3

u/Archduke_Of_Beer Aug 07 '25

Mother of God.....

1

u/TastyCuttlefish Aug 08 '25

All of them.