Hubble Telescope Helped Detect A (Mysterious) Black Hole

A group of researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Germany used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe a mysterious black hole - which has unusual dimensions for this type of phenomenon.

 

Between smaller black holes and black holes vastly larger than our Sun, this black hole observed in the vicinity of Omega Centauri seems to be of average size, which raises some interesting questions about how these phenomena develop.

"We discovered seven stars that shouldn't be [in Omega Centauri]. They are moving so fast that they should escape from the cluster and never return. The most likely explanation is that a very large object is gravitationally attracting these stars and keeping them close to the center. The only object that could be so large is a black hole, with a mass at least 8,200 times that of our Sun," explained one of the study's lead researchers, Maximilian Häberle, in a statement.

The research team intends to carry out further observations using the James Webb Space Telescope, so we may yet learn more about this mysterious black hole in the near future.