Scientists Discover 'Monster' Black Hole In Our Galaxy So Big It Shouldn't Exist

Good news for fans of all-consuming nothingness today as scientists at the Chinese Academy of Scientists have discovered a black hole so massive that, in the grand scheme of things, it's technically right behind you.

First off, a little background for perspective: up until now, most scientists have agreed that stellar black holes at the upper end of the size spectrum topped out at around 20 times the mass of our sun, since the process which creates them involves a star exploding and throwing off most of its guts like someone just dropped a torpedo down its ventilation shaft. But the comforting illusion of a universe filled only with gravity wells 2000 percent larger than Sol is now shattered by LB-1, the black hole discovered around 15,000 light years from Earth, which is estimated to weigh in at 70 times our sun's mass. 

Scientists are currently flummoxed as to how LB-1 got so huge, even with the standard holiday season weight gain taken into account. According to CNN, some theorize that it's actually two black holes orbiting one another. Others are labeling it a "fallback supernova," which is not, as previously assumed, the state supernova you go to when you get rejected by ivy league stellar explosions. It's what happens when an exploding star throws off all of its materials and then sucks them back in like a dog with food poisoning reabsorbing its own sick. The big problem with this theory is that a fallback supernova has never been observed before. So, potentially, big day for fallback supernovae. We see you. Don't ever change.

And before you freak out, don't worry. This is only the largest potential stellar black hole on record. There are still other varieties of black hole out there that dwarf LB-1 in terms of scale. A supermassive black hole, for example, can be millions of times the size of the sun, at which point even comparing them to the sun seems like a pointless exercise. They're bigger than anything you could comprehend. They're larger than your imagination. They're more massive than your worst nightmares.

Don't let the ever-present threat of entropy hit you on the way out.