The black hole, spotted 5 billion light-years away in the Cosmic Horseshoe, could be the most massive ever found.

Across the cosmos, heavier galaxies tend to host heavier black holes, a pattern known as the M–σ relation. But the Cosmic Horseshoe’s black hole sits about one and a half standard deviations above that trend, adding to evidence that the most massive galaxies may grow their central black holes more quickly — or in different ways — than smaller ones.

Astronomers have identified a colossal black hole, potentially the most massive ever detected, at the heart of the Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy located 5 billion light-years from Earth.

Theoretically, there's no limit to how massive a black hole could grow. In practical terms, other constraints, such as the growth rate, suggest that the maximum mass a black hole could achieve within the current 13.8-billion-year lifespan of the Universe is about 50 billion solar masses.

The massive "Cosmic Horseshoe" galaxy system likely hosts a colossal black hole measuring 36 billion times the mass of our sun — one of the largest ever seen in the universe, a new study finds. Scientists found the cosmic monster by peering through a halo of light called an "Einstein ring,

New measurements of the galaxy at the heart of the “Cosmic Horseshoe” indicate that it could house the most massive object ever seen in the universe.

It is 5 billion light-years away, quiet but mind-boggling in size a black hole with 36.3 billion solar masses. Located at the center of the lensing galaxy SDSS J1148+1930, more popularly referred to as the Cosmic Horseshoe,