[WATCH] NASA Animation Features Monstrous Scale of Supermassive Black Holes

NASA has just released a new animation showcasing the mind-boggling scale of supermassive black holes. These cosmic monsters are known to be lurking at the centers of many large galaxies, including our very own Milky Way.

The massive size of these black holes ranges from 100,000 to billions of times more than the mass of our sun, as highlighted in the animation.

The Event Horizon

The event horizon marks the point of no return for matter approaching these black holes. Any light that crosses this boundary is trapped indefinitely, while light that approaches is bent and redirected by the strong gravitational forces of the black hole, resulting in a shadow that's about twice the size of the event horizon.

The animation showcases ten supermassive black holes situated at the centers of their respective galaxies, including the Milky Way.

The camera takes us on a journey, starting from our own sun and steadily moving outwards to compare these massive entities with various structures in our solar system.

The animation starts with a glimpse of the black hole situated in the dwarf galaxy 1601+3113. It contains the mass equivalent to 100,000 suns, which is so densely packed that the shadow cast by the black hole is smaller than that of our Sun.

Next, the focus shifts to the black hole at the center of our Milky Way, referred to as Sagittarius A*. By monitoring the movements of stars orbiting it over an extended period, scientists have estimated its mass to be 4.3 million suns. Its shadow diameter is roughly half the size of Mercury's orbit.

In addition, the animation showcases two monstrous black holes present in the NGC 7727 galaxy. One of the black holes has a mass of 6 million suns, while the other is over 150 million suns.

They are located about 1,600 light-years apart, and experts predict that they will eventually merge within the next 250 million years.

Sheer Enormity of Supermassive Black Holes

As the camera continues to pull back, M87's black hole comes into view. With an updated mass of 5.4 billion suns, its shadow is so massive that even a beam of light traveling at 670 million miles per hour (1 billion kilometers per hour) would take approximately two and a half days to travel through it.

Concluding the animation is a glimpse of TON 618, which is among the very distant and massive black holes for which astronomers possess direct measurements.

This colossal entity has a mass exceeding 60 billion solar masses and possesses a shadow of such vast proportions that a beam of light would require weeks to cross it.

The animation brings to life the sheer enormity of these supermassive black holes and helps to give us a better understanding of the scale of the universe. With technology advancing at a rapid pace, it's exciting to think about what we'll learn about these mysterious objects in the future.