Biggest ever black hole explosion spotted by scientists - five times bigger than previous record

The biggest explosion ever recorded in the universe has been spotted by scientists.

Experts believe the newly discovered record-breaking eruption came from a black hole in a galaxy 390 million light years away from Earth.

The blast is around five times larger than any previous explosion recorded and has left a huge cavity in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster.

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Scientists first spotted hints of the giant eruption in 2016 and have been carrying out tests to determine its size.

Using a combination of X-ray data and radio data, experts have been able to determine the size of the blast.

Maxim Markevitch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said: "The radio data fit inside the X-rays like a hand in a glove.

"This is the clincher that tells us an eruption of unprecedented size occurred here."

Astronomers made this discovery using X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton, and radio data from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Australia and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India.

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