Introduction

Black holes are gigantic cosmic monsters, exotic objects whose gravity is so strong that not even light can escape their clutches. <br><br> Black holes come in a wide variety of forms, from small stellar-mass bodies to the supermassive beasts that reside at the hearts of galaxies. Here are 10 of the most extreme black holes, from the smallest to the largest and from cannibals to rogues. <br><br> FIRST UP: The biggest and baddest

The Biggest Black Holes

Nearly all galaxies are thought to harbor at their cores supermassive black holes millions to billions of times the mass of our sun. Scientists recently discovered the largest black holes known in two nearby galaxies. <br><br> One of these galaxies, known as NGC 3842 the brightest galaxy in the Leo cluster nearly 320 million light years away has a central black hole containing 9.7 billion solar masses. The other, NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in the Coma cluster more than 335 million light years away, has a black hole of comparable or larger mass. <br><br> The gravitational range, or "event horizon," of these black holes is about five times the distance from the sun to Pluto. For comparison, these black holes are 2,500 times as massive as the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, whose event horizon is one-fifth the orbit of Mercury. <br><br> NEXT UP: The smallest

The Smallest Black Hole

The smallest black hole discovered to date may be less than three times the mass of our sun. This would put this little monster, officially called IGR J17091-3624, near the theoretical minimum limit needed for a black hole to be stable. As tiny as this black hole may be, it looks fierce, capable of 20 million mph winds (32 million kph) the fastest yet observed from a stellar-mass black hole by nearly 10 times. <br><br> NEXT UP: Cannibal black holes

Cannibalistic Black Holes

Black holes devour anything unlucky enough to drift too close, including other black holes. Scientists recently detected the monstrous black hole at the heart of one galaxy getting consumed by a still larger black hole in another. <br><br> The discovery is the first of its kind. Astronomers had witnessed the final stages of the merging of galaxies of equal mass so-called major mergers but minor mergers between galaxies and smaller companions had long eluded researchers. <br><br> Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, investigators detected two black holes at the center of a galaxy dubbed NGC3393, with one black hole about 30 million times the mass of the sun and the other at least 1 million times the mass of the sun, separated from each other by only about 490 light-years. <br><br> NEXT UP: Spitting gas bullets

Bullet-shooting Black Hole

Black holes are known for sucking in matter, but researchers find they can shoot it out as well. Observations of a black hole called H1743-322, which harbors five to 10 times the mass of the sun and is located about 28,000 light-years from Earth, revealed it apparently pulled matter off a companion star, then spat some of it back out as gigantic "bullets" of gas moving at nearly a quarter the speed of light. <br><br> NEXT UP: The oldest black hole

The Oldest Known Black Hole

The oldest black hole found yet, officially known as ULAS J1120+0641, was born about 770 million years after the Big Bang that created our universe. (Scientists think the Big Bang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago.) <br><br> The ancient age of this black hole actually poses some problems for astronomers. This brilliant enigma appears to be 2 billion times the mass of the sun. How black holes became so massive so soon after the Big Bang is difficult to explain. <br><br> NEXT UP: Bright black holes

The Brightest Black Hole

Although the gravitational pulls of black holes are so strong that even light cannot escape, they also make up the heart of quasars, the most luminous, most powerful and most energetic objects in the universe. <br><br> As supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies suck in surrounding gas and dust, they can spew out huge amounts of energy. The brightest quasar we see in the visible range is 3C 273, which lies about 3 billion light-years away. <br><br> NEXT UP: Rogue black holes

Rogue Black Holes

When galaxies collide, black holes can get kicked away from the site of the crash to roam freely through space. The first known such rogue black hole, SDSSJ0927+2943, may be approximately 600 million times the mass of the sun and hurtle through space at a whopping 5.9 million mph (9.5 million kph). Hundreds of rogue black holes might wander the Milky Way. <br><br> NEXT UP: Mid-size monsters

Middleweight Black Holes

Scientists have long thought that black holes come in three sizes essentially small, medium and large. Relatively small black holes holding the mass of a few suns are common, while supermassive black holes millions to billions of solar masses are thought to lurk at the heart of nearly every galaxy. One more massive than four million suns, for example, is thought to hide in the center of the Milky Way. <br><br> However, middleweight black holes had eluded astronomers for years. Scientists recently discovered an intermediate-mass black hole, called HLX-1 (HyperLuminous X-ray source 1), approximately 290 million light-years from Earth, which appears to be about 20,000 solar masses in size. <br><br> Medium-size black holes are thought to be the building blocks of supermassive black holes, so understanding more about them can shed light on how these monsters and the galaxies that surround them evolved. <br><br> NEXT UP: Super-fast spinners

Fastest-spinning Black Hole

Black holes can whirl the fabric of space around themselves at extraordinary speeds. One black hole called GRS 1915+105, in the constellation Aquila (The Eagle) about 35,000 light-years from Earth, is spinning more than 950 times per second. <br><br> An item placed on the edge of the black hole's event horizon the edge past which nothing can escape would spin around it at a speed of more than 333 million mph (536 million kph), or about half the speed of light. <br><br> NEXT UP: Tabletop black holes

Tabletop Black Holes

Black holes are thankfully quite far away from Earth, but this distance makes it difficult to gather clues that could help solve the many mysteries that surround them. However, researchers are now recreating the enigmatic properties of black holes on tabletops. <br><br> For instance, black holes possess gravitational pulls so powerful that nothing, including light, can escape after falling past a border known as the event horizon. Scientists have created an artificial event horizon in the lab using fiber optics. They have also recreated the so-called Hawking radiation thought to escape from black holes. Follow Us:
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The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe

by Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com Contributor Date: 24 August 2012 Time: 09:40 AM ET
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Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

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Introduction Black holes are gigantic cosmic monsters, exotic objects whose gravity is so strong that not even light can escape their clutches. Black holes come in a wide variety of forms, from small stellar-mass bodies to the supermassive beasts that reside at the hearts of galaxies. Here are 10 of the most extreme black holes, from the smallest to the largest and from cannibals to rogues. FIRST UP: The biggest and baddest

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John Parker here's an interesting question. What happens when anti-matter meets a black hole? does it get treated like normal matter or does it's opposite charge make it more attractive or even immune to a black hole's gravity? The energy from one anti particle and one matter particle, could that make a black hole grow exponentially? or be the cause of a quasar emmission? Reply 6 Like July 2 at 12:05pm Tony Kiemel Minnetonka, Minnesota I have a personal theory in regards to this. Part of that theory includes the theoretical makeup of specifically what type of matter is contained in a black hole. If you consider the intense heat and pressures required in order to create the nuclear fusion reaction of a star (which fuses the fundamental elements helium and hydrogen into more complex elements, etc, etc, all the way down to the non-fusable element, Iron, which is, on a side note, ultimately responsible for the nearly instantaneous deaths of stars), when you multiply those forces by anywhere between 3 and 100 billion times the pressure of our sun at it's core, you create a black hole. Well, what is a black hole? It's highly dense, highly destructive, with a violent gravitational field great enough to trap photons (visible light). Well, if white-dwarf stars (r... See More Reply 14 Like July 5 at 10:59pm

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Tony Kiemel Minnetonka, Minnesota According to the standard model, the battle of matter vs anti-matter was 1 billion to 1 in the early universe. This means that for every 1 billion particles of anti-matter, there was 1 billion +1 particle of matter. Those 1 billion particles of matter and anti-matter reacted and decayed into pure energy. I believe that quasars are either a smaller scale representation of that matter/anti-matter battle, and are a direct result of matter defeating the anti-matter, if you will, which could explain quasar emmission, seeing as though elementary particles of matter are being blasted out into space; the black hole (quasar), if created by anti-matter, would be in a later stage in its life-span, much like how a star, again, fuses elements and re-fuses those elements to create even heavier elements, etc etc, each time lowering its fusi... See More Reply 8 Like July 5 at 11:24pm

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Navid Haider Dhaka, Bangladesh Tony Kiemel , mister, you just made more sense than any other explanation of black holes i've read or heard about. Those were utterly brilliant. Reply Like August 6 at 3:16pm View 3 more Michael Banks The common factor in the universe seems to be that energy flows in a toroidal pattern. I'm no expert by any means, but to me it seems that the universe, possibly even the multiverse, is a fractal toroid in which all energy seems to naturally tend to flow in a constantly recycling toroidal vortex. That pattern seems to be present in everything from whirlpools to the way the earth's magnetic field flows and especially in spiral galaxies. The magnetic lines of force come out one end and cycle back around to the other side continuously to form one big universal donut. :) Reply 3 Like August 6 at 1:40pm

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3 Like August 6 at 1:40pm Paul Laubhan Top Commenter Sage at Throughout the cosmos Yes! I'm not even going to pretend I understand all that, as you obviously have a hell of a lot more education than I related to math and physics. But did you by any chance see the Simpsons episode where Homer was explaining his Donut theory of the Universe to Stephen Hawking over a beer in a bar? Hawking says,"Homer, your theory of a donut shaped Universe intrigues me. I may have to steal it."? One of the funniest things I've ever seen, heard, or read anywhere or anywhen. (Staunch believer in time travel) Reply 1 Like August 7 at 9:47pm Genghis Curameng Canyon High Wow! I like this theory! Humor me: is this toroidal donut glazed or sprinkled? Seriously, good concept though out of my realm of comprehension yet Reply Like August 16 at 10:04pm Michael Banks ...Lots of sparkly sprinkles. I think we call them stars. ;) Reply 2 Like August 17 at 8:06am

Amritansh Lohit Doing What the Fuck I Want Now what I think of black hole is, isn't it right that its gravitational pull is so strong that it attracts even massive bodies inside without a escape. But what I think is there must be a limit to its storage capacity. I have read that matter is being sucked inside the black hole but then what happens to all those matter. What I think is maybe its the conversion into some other kind of sources of energy or something. And also there is a thing called WORMHOLE its concept is although different from the black hole that a wormhole is like a space bridge so that a far greater distance can be covered within a fraction of seconds in space but things goes inside from one end and comes out from another. So what I want to ask is may be the same or similar concept should work with black holes? Reply 2 Like August 9 at 9:37pm Joe Clark Top Commenter Marysville, Ohio Personally I don't believe there is a upper limit to the amount of material that can be stored/held in a black hole. The forces that contain the material inside are infinitely powerful and can retain the content forever. As for their purpose they serve as whare houses that retain the stuff that our solar system is made of unlike the majority of dark matter that pervades the known universe . You noticed that I said known universe. There remains so much of the univers that is unobserved due to its infinite distance. There may be some real surprises for us in what cannot be seen. Reply Like August 13 at 6:45pm Amritansh Lohit Doing What the Fuck I Want I agree that there is hardly a limit we can imagine regarding the storage and also the forces are unimaginable powerful but what i am trying to say is if a black hole get bigger by intaking lots of stuffs so its converse will be like it will spits out objects to make a smaller black hole. Although its not proven but taking things differently will sure make us collect more relative facts. Reply Like August 14 at 4:46am Tabitha Guerrero We've witnessed what a black hole will do when it gets, for a better term, 'full'. It will send out the access energy as a gamma ray. One such gamma ray was seen from earth from like a million light years away or so! Reply 1 Like August 20 at 5:26pm nick_martino (signed in using yahoo) Given the nature of black holes, it strikes me as rather dangerous to create one artificially. However, if things keep going as they have for the past 30 years, and the New World Order Nazis are able to realize their Nazi Dream of a world without privacy, freedom or any form of dissent, I would encourage someone to put an end to it all by any means possible, including having the whole shebang sucked into a black hole the size of Obama's ego. Reply 3 Like July 2 at 6:07pm Cynthia Davis Top Commenter sigh always one flat earther in the bunch. this is about SCIENCE if you want partisan politics go blog on a FOX affiliate Reply 8 Like July 4 at 9:57am Isidro Garcia Top Commenter Moody High School We have a local one called Rush Limbaugh. Seriously, there is a theory that this universe is only a child of a much larger multiverse. Reply 3 Like July 2 at 7:51pm

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Terry Roy Top Commenter Vertical, Horizontal or Sitting at Retired/Disabled Perfect Reply Like July 5 at 4:52pm Thomas Lewis Top Commenter Smithtown High School East could they actually tear a hole in our space and time and be a portal to another universe.Every galaxy has one at its center, just like stars forming, black holes must exist for a very important purpose.There is a order to the universe, its not a free for all.I would love to see a joint world super telescope built on the moon, maybe a mile in size in light collecting ability, to hopefully answer more questions about universe, most important would be black holes and planets that may support life, possibly even intelligent on a order much higher than us. Reply 2 Like July 4 at 9:18pm Bob McIntosh Longwood High School Eeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuzzzzzzzzzz. That's alien for. "I think you have too much time on your hands. GET A GIRL FRIEND.

HAHHAHAAHAHAHA LOL. just kiddin. Reply 2 Like July 5 at 2:41am Jin Milano Smithtown High School West Ha. Hey These black holes are our girlfriends alright?! Reply Like July 5 at 10:41am Tabitha Guerrero =3 I have a boyfriend. Does that count? And I'm fascinated by black holes. And worm holes. Reply Like August 20 at 5:44pm Michael Dugas "How black holes became so massive so soon after the Big Bang is difficult to explain. " I'm not so sure why an explanation for black holes, massive ones, early post big bang, is that much of an enigma. Hydrogen in the early universe was much denser, less spread out. Many Massive stars, MASSIVE STARS, formed and their lives are much shorter than the lifespan of stars such as our relatively stable sun. In the very early universe stars and the black holes created from them were packed much closer together. There was much more gas and stars, matter in general, for those black holes to feed on and black hole mergers were much more common. Thus I don't believe that super massive black holes so soon after the big bang should be considered odd. Reply 3 Like June 6 at 2:57pm Christian Nicolas Atkinson Works at No one will hire me We need a black hole around here to get rid of all that space rubbish AND terrestrial corruption! Reply 2 Like June 24 at 2:09am Gary Moretti Top Commenter Most Of Us Went Moretti Theory explains (WHY) Black Holes at the time of the early universe were able to become so massive...Google Gary Moretti Theory...Thanks. Reply 1 Like June 13 at 7:54am Jay-r Morillo Unknown at Classified so many black holes! Reply Like June 11 at 8:01pm Genghis Curameng Canyon High So little time? Reply 1 Like August 8 at 12:33am View 10 more
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