know calamitous holes in the existence are either stellar - size , a handful of clock time the slew of Sun , or supermassive , count millions if not jillion of that of a unconstipated ace . The want of in - between object has perplexed astronomers for a long prison term , but in the last several years candidates of these “ intermediate - mass black holes ” ( IMBH ) have been spotted . And now a team has found the best evidence yet for one .
As reported inThe Astrophysical Journal Letters , the international team of astronomers followed up on an X - ray flare from a distant galaxy tell apart by NASA ’s Chandra telescope and the European XMM - Newton telescope back in 2006 . The notice advise a black cakehole 50,000 time the tidy sum of the Sun , but the data was not strong enough to except alternative explanations . A very spicy neutron star within the galax , which is located 805 million light - years from Earth , may have had a similar signature .
To clarify its nature , the squad come after up the informant , known as 3XMM J215022.4?055108 , with the Hubble Space Telescope . They find that it was not really located in the coltsfoot ’s core , where a black hole would normally model , but just outside it . The emission emanated from a stellar clump outside the main extragalactic nebula , possibly the stripped core group of an ancient small dwarf galaxy that lost its adept to the much much heavier nearby galaxy , which is where astronomers expect to incur an IMBH , strengthening the character for this being an elusive mid - size black hole .
" Intermediate - mass opprobrious holes are very elusive objects , and so it is critical to cautiously consider and rule out substitute explanation for each prospect . That is what Hubble has allow us to do for our campaigner , " conduce writer Dacheng Lin of the University of New Hampshire say in astatement .
The black hole flame up up because it ripped a headliner aside . This not only allowed for its original spotting but , thanks to uninterrupted observations over the old age , also countenance for a detailed word picture of the disruption event . The team weigh this a all-important difference of opinion between this finding and previous candidate for average - wad black yap , like HLX-1 .
" The main difference is that our object is deplumate a star apart , providing strong evidence that it is a monumental pitch-black hole , or else of a stellar - wad black gob as people often worry about for previous candidate including HLX-1 , " Lin allege .
There are still many unknowns when it comes to these objects . Their formation and their potential kinship with the other types of black kettle of fish is still shrouded in mystery , but hopefully obtain one mid - size black mess will launch the door to finding others hiding out there .
