Phoenix A is NOT a Black Hole — It's Something Worse (And It Just Woke Up)

Phoenix A is the largest known black hole in the universe. It sits 5.7 billion light-years away, may weigh as much as 100 billion suns, and has an event horizon big enough to swallow our entire solar system a hundred times over. And after spending most of its life dormant in the dark, it has just started feeding again. This is the story of an ultramassive black hole that pushes the very definition of a black hole to its breaking point. We look at how Phoenix A was discovered through the South Pole Telescope, why the galaxy at the center of its host cluster is forming new stars at close to a thousand times the rate of the Milky Way, and why the math that explains every other supermassive black hole completely falls apart when applied to this one. The light reaching our telescopes from Phoenix A started its journey before Earth had even formed. By the time it arrived, our planet had cooled, grown an atmosphere, hosted life, and produced creatures capable of building the instruments needed to receive it. This is the kind of object that makes you feel small in a way most black holes can't. Thanks for watching. #PhoenixA #BlackHole #SpaceDocumentary #Astrophysics #Universe