An ultramassive black hole around 33 billion times the mass of the Sun has been discovered by astronomers in the UK – one of the biggest ever found.

Scientists from Durham University said the discovery of the gargantuan black hole is “extremely exciting” and their work opens up the “tantalising possibility” that astronomers can discover more ultramassive black holes than previously thought.

Ultramassive black holes are the biggest objects in the universe, at between 10 billion and 40 billion times the mass of the Sun.

The supermassive black hole, about 2.7 billion light-years from Earth, is located in the bright galaxy of the “Abell 1201” galaxy cluster.

Source: Oman News Agency