Chinese scientists have discovered a “king-sized” stellar-mass black hole containing the mass of 70 suns, the biggest of its kind and three times bigger than theoretical limit. This discovery challenged astronomers’ traditional understanding of the size and formation process for black holes of its class, and provided new ways to find similar black holes that may lead to new theories for black hole astrophysics.

The black hole, named LB-1, was found slowly devouring a nearby star around 13,800 light years from Earth. It was first spotted by Chinese scientists in 2016 using the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), the world’s largest spectral survey telescope located in Hebei province.