Scientists Say They’ve Identified A Special Type Of Black Hole

By their very nature, black holes are incredibly difficult to locate in the expanse of the cosmos. Since even light cannot escape their gravitational pull, it takes powerful tools, experienced astronomers, and more than a little luck to spot one.

And there’s a particular class of black hole that has proven particularly adept at hiding.

What makes it unique

No medium-sized black hole had ever been definitively identified until the one described recently in the Nature journal. But astronomer Maximilian Haberle and his team weren’t deterred by the long odds when they began looking at evidence that ultimately led to their conclusion.

Here are some highlights from the report:

• The black hole was found among millions of stars in the cluster Omega Centauri
• It is estimated to be about 8,000 times more massive than the sun we orbit around
• That is much smaller than supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies

Until now, the existence of this class of black hole has been merely speculative.

“So people have wondered, is it difficult to find them because they are just not there, or because it’s difficult to detect them?” Haberle explained.

How it was identified

Instead of actually capturing images of the black hole itself, astronomers must instead rely on evidence of its gravitational pull. And that was found by tracking the movement of roughly 1.4 million stars tracked by the Hubble Space Telescope over the course of about 20 years.

In the end, it all came down to the movement of seven stars, which were moving so much faster than the others that the only explanation was “there must be something that is pulling on them gravitationally such that they don’t escape,” Haberle explained.

The only object that would fit that bill? An intermediate-mass black hole.

Chris Agee July 11th, 2024

Share this story: