A NEW black hole has been discovered behind Omega Centauri, a collection of 10 million stars, which could be the closest to Earth.
Despite housing the mass of thousands of Suns, detecting black holes can be like finding a needle in a cosmic haystack.
“There are black holes a little heavier than our Sun that are like ants or spiders – they are difficult to detect, but they are widespread throughout the universe,” explained Matthew Whittaker, a University of Utah graduate student and co-author. of the study.
“So you have supermassive black holes that are like Godzilla in the centers of galaxies destroying things, and we can see them easily,”
“So these intermediate-mass black holes are on the level of Bigfoot.
“Finding them is like finding the first evidence of Bigfoot – people will freak out.”
Omega Centauri contains a black hole at its center, with a mass at least 8,200 times that of our Sun, which has eluded scientists until now.
Astronomers consider the black hole to be the missing link between how a stellar black hole turns into a supermassive black hole.
It is currently in the intermediate phase of its evolution and is considerably less massive than the typical black holes found at the center of galaxies such as Omega Centauri.
Anil Seth, associate professor of astronomy at the University of Utah and co-principal investigator (PI) of the study, called it “a once-in-a-career kind of discovery.”
“I’ve been excited about this for nine straight months,” he added. “Every time I think about it, I have trouble sleeping.”
Seth continued: “I think extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is truly extraordinary evidence.”
Two decades of images
The international team of astronomers used more than 500 images from two decades of observations that were captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
In these images, scientists spotted seven fast-moving stars near the center of Omega Centauri, which appear to be being pulled by a black hole.
The only object that can have this much mass is a black hole, with a mass at least 8,200 times that of our Sun
Maximilian Häberle of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
“We discovered seven stars that shouldn’t be there,” explained Maximilian Häberle, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, who led the investigation.
“They are moving so fast that they would escape the cluster and never come back.
“The most likely explanation is that a very massive object is gravitationally attracting these stars and keeping them close to the center.
“The only object that can be this massive is a black hole, with a mass at least 8,200 times that of our Sun.”
Can you see this?
The new black hole may be the closest to Earth – but we don’t need to worry.
It is still about 17,700 light years away from Earth.
It is, however, much closer than scientists previously thought to be our closest black hole, 26,000 light-years away, which is 4.3 million solar masses at the center of the Milky Way.
But can you see this?
Omega Centauri is visible from Earth with the naked eye and is a fan favorite among stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere.
The cluster can appear almost as large as the full Moon when viewed from very dark, very rural areas.
That said, it doesn’t look any different from other so-called globular clusters — and you won’t be able to see the black hole roaring at its center.
Seth has now been given the green light to use the James Webb Space Telescope for further investigation.
The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, considered the most powerful telescope ever built, is the successor to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
The long-term goal is to determine how stars accelerate: how their orbits curve. However, following these stars once around their entire orbit, as in the Nobel Prize-winning observations near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, is a project for future generations of astronomers.
What is a black hole? The main facts
Here’s what you need to know…
- A black hole is a region of space where absolutely nothing can escape
- That’s because they have extremely strong gravitational effects, which means that once something enters a black hole, it can’t go back out.
- They get their name because not even light can escape once it’s sucked in – which is why a black hole is completely dark.
What is an event horizon?
- There must be a point where you are so close to a black hole that you cannot escape
- Otherwise, literally everything in the universe would have been sucked into a
- The point at which you can no longer escape the gravitational pull of a black hole is called the event horizon.
- The event horizon varies between different black holes depending on their mass and size
What is a singularity?
- The gravitational singularity is the center of a black hole
- It is a one-dimensional point that contains an incredibly large mass in an infinitely small space
- At the singularity, spacetime curves infinitely and the gravitational pull is infinitely strong
- The conventional laws of physics stop applying at this point
How are black holes created?
- Most black holes are formed when a supergiant star dies
- This happens when stars run out of fuel – like hydrogen – to burn, causing the star to collapse.
- When this happens, gravity quickly pulls the center of the star inward and it turns into a small ball.
- It expands and contracts until a final collapse, causing part of the star to collapse inward thanks to gravity, and the rest of the star to explode outward.
- The remaining central ball is extremely dense, and if it’s especially dense, you get a black hole
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
