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Astronomers have discovered an "intermediate-mass" black hole that they believe is the "best evidence" of a "cosmic homicide."
The research, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, shows the black hole is significantly smaller than supermassive black holes that are at the core of large galaxies but still larger than other black holes. It is believed to weigh 50,000 times the mass of the sun.
"Intermediate-mass black holes are very elusive objects, and so it is critical to carefully consider and rule out alternative explanations for each candidate," the study's lead author, Dacheng Lin, said in a statement. "That is what Hubble has allowed us to do for our candidate."
This Hubble Space Telescope image identified the location of an intermediate-mass black hole, weighing 50,000 times the mass of our sun (making it much smaller than supermassive black holes found in the centers of galaxies). The black hole, named 3XMM J215022.4−055108, is indicated by the white circle. (Credit: NASA, ESA and D. Lin, University of New Hampshire)
ASTRONOMERS BELIEVE THEY HAVE FOUND THE EDGE OF THE MILKY WAY GALAXY
These intermediate-mass black holes are believed to the "missing link" in black hole evolution. It was discovered thanks to two X-ray observations and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in April 1990.
Lin and the other researchers looked at the X-ray source, known as 3XMM J215022.4−055108, and found it was not in the center of a galaxy, which gave them hope it was an elusive IMBH.
"This is much more reliable than using X-ray luminosity alone as typically done before for previous IMBH candidates," Lin added. "The reason why we can use the spectral fits to estimate the IMBH mass for our object is that its spectral evolution showed that it has been in the thermal spectral state, a state commonly seen and well understood in accreting stellar-mass black holes."
BLACK HOLE AT MILKY WAY'S CENTER SEEN BEHAVING STRANGELY
In October 2019, Fox News reported the Milky Way had stolen several dwarf galaxies from the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy, including the Carina and Fornax, as part of a merger between the two that is still ongoing.
Earlier this month, NASA released a new image of the center of the Milky Way. At the center of the galaxy are a number of different objects, including the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, which weighs approximately 4 million times the mass of the sun and has clouds of gas at temperatures of millions of degrees.
In January, astronomers spotted four "strange" objects orbiting Sagittarius A*.
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