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The core of the spectacular globular cluster Omega Centauri glitters with the combined light of 2 million stars. The entire cluster contains 10 million stars, and is among the biggest and most massive of some 200 globular clusters orbiting the Milky Way Galaxy. Omega Centauri lies 17,000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany and the University of Texas at Austin have reported on the possible detection of an intermediate-mass black hole in the core of Omega Centauri.

The result is primarily based on spectroscopic measurements obtained with the Gemini South observatory in Chile which suggest the stars are moving around the central core of the cluster at higher than expected velocities. Among the possible explanations for these speedy stars – and the one favored by their study – is that an intermediate-mass black hole of approximately 40,000 solar masses resides at the center of Omega Centauri. Its powerful gravitational field speeds up the motions of stars near the core. Hubble images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys were used in key areas in support of this study: to help pinpoint the center of the cluster, as well as to measure the amount of starlight at the cluster center. Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile, team members Eva Noyola and Karl Gebhardt are planning to obtain follow-up observations to help confirm the existence of an intermediate-mass black hole. The Hubble images were taken in June 2002.

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      4 Min Read NASA Finds ‘Sideways’ Black Hole Using Legacy Data, New Techniques
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      For news media:
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      Last Updated Dec 18, 2024 Related Terms
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      /wp-content/plugins/nasa-blocks/assets/images/article-templates/anne-mcclain.jpg Alexandra Veledina
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      Elizabeth Landau
      NASA Headquarters
      elizabeth.r.landau@nasa.gov
      202-358-0845
      Lane Figueroa
      NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
      256-544-0034
      lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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      Last Updated Dec 06, 2024 Related Terms
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      The dual black holes are in the center of a galaxy called 2MASX J21240027+3409114, located 1 billion light-years away in the northern constellation Cygnus. The pair are about 16 billion miles (26 billion kilometers) apart, close enough that light only takes a day to travel between them. Together they contain 40 million times the Sun’s mass.
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      “Although this flare was originally thought to be a supernova, outbursts in 2022 made us think of other explanations,” said co-author Alejandra Muñoz-Arancibia, an ALeRCE team member and astrophysicist at the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics and the Center for Mathematical Modeling at the University of Chile. “Each subsequent event has helped us refine our model of what’s going on in the system.”
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      The researchers conducted a Goldilocks-type elimination of different models to explain what they saw in the data.
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      Watch as a gas cloud encounters two supermassive black holes in this simulation. The complex interplay of gravitational and frictional forces causes the cloud to condense and heat. Some of the gas is ejected from the system with each orbit of the black holes. F. Goicovic et al. 2016 Hernández-García and her team plan to continue observations of AT 2021hdr to better understand the system and improve their models. They’re also interested in studying its home galaxy, which is currently merging with another one nearby — an event first reported in their paper.
      “As Swift approaches its 20th anniversary, it’s incredible to see all the new science it’s still helping the community accomplish,” said S. Bradley Cenko, Swift’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “There’s still so much it has left to teach us about our ever-changing cosmos.”
      NASA’s missions are part of a growing, worldwide network watching for changes in the sky to solve mysteries of how the universe works.
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      Download high-resolution images and videos.

      By Jeanette Kazmierczak
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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      Last Updated Nov 13, 2024 Editor Jeanette Kazmierczak Related Terms
      Astrophysics Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research Goddard Space Flight Center Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Science & Research Supermassive Black Holes The Universe View the full article
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