Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the closest massive black hole to Earth ever seen, a cosmic titan"frozen in time." appears to have a mass of around 8,200 suns, which makes it considerably more massive than stellar-mass black holes with masses between 5 and 100 times that of the sun, and much less massive than aptly named supermassive black holes, which have mass millions to billions that of the sun.
An illustration showing the three types of astrophysical black holes, staring from the most massive on the left to the least massive on the rightYet, these intermediate-mass black holes with masses between a few hundred and a few thousand times that of the sun have, for the most part, seem to have avoided detection. That's because, like all black holes, these mid-sized cosmic titans are marked by outer boundaries calledbecomes so immense that not even light is fast enough to escape it.
The fact that our galaxy has matured enough to have grown a supermassive black hole at its heart means it has probably outgrown the stage of possessing many intermediate-mass black holes of its own. This one exists in the Milky Way, the team says, because theTiny black holes left over from the Big Bang may be prime dark matter suspects
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