![M87 black hole Infrared image of the galaxy Messier 87. The luminous point in its center indicates the position of its black hole, one of the most massive known, one billion times the mass of our Sun. Image taken with the VLT telescope and its adaptive optics system at the ESO observatory in Chile.](/sites/default/files/styles/crop_square_2_2_to_320px/public/images/media/image/m87-ks.gif?itok=7GTrx4QG)
The confirmation of the existence of black holes is one of the most basic results in astrophysics. There is a wide range of masses of black holes, from those with stellar mass, which are the result of the catastrophic final phase of very massive stars, to the supermassive black holes at the centres of most galaxies. The mass of a black hole is up to now the only parameter which scientists are able to measure. In this work, we present an original method for measuring the masses of black holes, from those of stellar mass to the supermassive variety, based on a simple measurement of the
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