Ultra-rare black hole found hiding in the center of the Milky Way
Astronomers have spotted a rare “missing link” black hole right next to our galaxy’s supermassive black hole.
The IRS 13 star cluster has puzzled astronomers for years. Located near the heart of the Milky Way, where the Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole resides, the cluster should not have much structure due to the massive black hole’s gravitational pull. However, after investigating, researchers found that the hot, massive stars are moving in an orderly pattern.
The explanation is that the stars are anchored by a rare intermediate-mass black hole interacting with Sagittarius A*. This discovery was published in The Astrophysical Journal on July 18.
Black holes come from the collapse of giant stars and grow by consuming gas, dust, stars, and other black holes. Currently, known black holes fall into two categories: stellar-mass (a few to a dozen times the mass of the sun) and supermassive (many millions to billions times more massive than the sun).
Intermediate-mass black holes, which range from 100 to 100,000 times the sun’s mass, are the most elusive. While scientists have spotted evidence for several promising candidates, no intermediate-mass black holes have been definitively confirmed.
To investigate IRS 13, astronomers used the Very Large Telescope, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and Chandra X-ray space telescope. Their observations and mathematical model revealed a seemingly unoccupied space at the center of the cluster, but detected X-rays from a ring of ionized gas – evidence of an intermediate black hole’s accretion disk.
Orbital calculations suggest a mass 30,000 times that of our sun is likely occupying this region: an intermediate-mass black hole. Further observations with the James Webb Space Telescope and Extremely Large Telescope will help explain how mini black holes and their gigantic cousins operate.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/space/black-holes/ultra-rare-black-hole-found-hiding-in-the-center-of-the-milky-way