A collision observed between two black holes, each more massive than a hundred suns, is the largest merger of its kind ever recorded, according to new research.

An international team of physicists discovered the largest-ever merger of 2 black holes through a phenomenon known as gravitational waves.

But in the past two decades, new types of black holes have been seen and astronomers are beginning to understand how they form. Called supermassive black holes, they have been found at the center of pretty much every galaxy and are a hundred thousand to billion times the mass of our Sun.

Named GW 231123 after the date it was recorded on 23 November 2023, it's the most massive black hole collision we've seen yet, resulting in an object heavier than 225 Suns. Previously, the most massive black hole collision produced an object 142 times the mass of the Sun.

Astronomers have detected the signal of a colossal black hole in deep space that likely formed when two already-large black holes crashed into each other billions of light-years away.

ENTs occur when stars that are at least three times as massive as the Sun pass so close to a supermassive black hole that its colossal gravity shreds them to pieces. The resulting string of matter then spirals into the black hole in a phenomenon known as accretion.