Phoenix A: The Biggest Black Hole

This is the largest black hole ever discovered and it's so massive it shouldn't even exist.

It's called Phoenix A, sitting at the center of the Phoenix galaxy cluster about 5.7

billion light years away. Scientists estimate its mass at up to 100 billion suns,

almost the size of your- For comparison, the black hole in our galaxy is only four million suns.

Phoenix A star feeds on huge amounts of gas, forming a super hot accretion disk

that glows in X-rays, allowing astronomers to detect it. It also blasts out enormous energy

that heats surrounding galaxies, stopping new stars from forming. This single object

controls an entire cosmic neighborhood. Its event horizon, the point where nothing escapes,