Ultra-rare discovery reveals black hole concealed at the core of the Milky Way

A secretive celestial entity known as an intermediate-mass black hole has been found lurking adjacent to the supermassive black hole within our galaxy.

Located just a fraction of a light-year away from the Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way, the IRS 13 star cluster has long puzzled astronomers. It has defied expectations due to its close proximity to the colossal black hole, whose immense gravitational force should have inhibited the cluster's structure.

Conducting a thorough investigation, scientists have unraveled the enigma. They have observed that the cluster's massive, hot stars exhibit a remarkably orderly pattern of movement. Their research, outlined in a study published in The Astrophysical Journal on July 18, proposes an explanation — an elusive black hole interacting with Sagittarius A* is effectively anchoring the stars.

Lead author Florian Peissker, an astronomer from the University of Cologne in Germany, expressed his astonishment at the ongoing revelations surrounding this fascinating star cluster. Initially perceived as an unusually hefty star, thorough examination of high-resolution data now confirms the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole situated at its core.

Originating from the gravitational collapse of colossal stars, black holes grow by feeding on gas, dust, stars, and other black holes. Currently, types of black holes typically fall into two broad categories: stellar-mass black holes, with masses ranging from a few times up to dozens of times that of the sun, and supermassive black holes, colossal cosmic entities weighty enough to be anywhere between a few million to 50 billion times the mass of our sun.

Once again, the newly discovered intermediate-mass black holes add another layer to the complex cosmic puzzle. These elusive entities theoretically have masses ranging from 100 to 100,000 times that of the sun, and although scientists have identified several compelling candidates, definitive confirmation of the existence of intermediate-mass black holes still eludes us.

This puzzle perplexes astronomers. If black holes transition from stellar to supermassive dimensions by voracious consumption during a relentless feeding frenzy, the scarcity of confirmed sightings of black holes during their awkward adolescent phase exposes a significant gap in our understanding of these cosmic behemoths.

Unraveling the IRS 13 star cluster's structure, astronomers combined observations captured by the Very Large Telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and the Chandra X-ray space telescope to create a mathematical model.

The intriguing movements of the stars within the cluster indicated an apparently unoccupied space at its center. However, scrutiny of this void exposed X-rays emanating from an ionized gas ring — compelling evidence of an accretion disk around a black hole. Computational calculations characterized the region as potentially harboring an intermediate black hole, with a mass approximately 30,000 times that of our sun.

Armed with the detection of this black hole candidate, the researchers intend to continue the investigation, aided by observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and the under-construction Extremely Large Telescope located in Chile's Atacama desert. These powerful telescopes promise not only to shed light on the enigmatic behavior of the star cluster but also to delve into the fundamental question of how both mini black holes and their gigantic counterparts operate, providing invaluable insights to the realm of celestial phenomena.

Earlier, SSP told that astronomers measured the 'warp speed' of the Milky Way galaxy.