In a new research titled ‘’An intermediate-mass black hole in the center of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae.’’ published in the scientific journal ''Nature'', scientists have discovered a ‘’mid-sized’’ black hole at the center of a distant Star Cluster called 47 Tucanae.
Using computer simulation and observations the researchers were able to detect evidence based on prior theoretical assumptions, the newly discovered black hole was only theoretically predicted but was never confirmed.
Black holes
One of the main predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity is the prediction of gravity reaching infinity forming a ‘’hole’’ in spacetime which scientists call a ‘’black hole''.
Black holes are considered black since nothing can escape them, not even light.
Black holes come in different sizes; small, mid-sized, and the massive black holes. Scientists had observed the small size and the massive ones as well, although the mid-sized black holes have been a missing link in astrophysics. There had been some indications for the mid-sized black holes, but it had never been confirmed.
Finding the missing black hole
The researchers of the new study have been studying and observing a 12-billion-year-old globular star cluster ‘’47 Tucanae’’ located about 13,000 light years away from earth. A star cluster is not a galaxy, galaxies are made of tens or hundreds of star clusters, while a star cluster is a spherical group of stars bound together in space.
Astronomers have been studying 47 Tucanae for a long time searching for a b-hole in its center with no success.
Star clusters are crowded with stars covering all of its areas, so if it was the case that a black hole is located in the center, then the black hole will have a role similar to a ‘’spoon’’ rotating water in a cup.
It would necessarily make the ‘’dense’’ stars move at higher speeds and greater distances from the center of the cluster, which was discovered by the researchers using computer simulations and visible light observations.
A second clue that the researchers found was that pulsars, dead stars whose radio signals are easily detectable, finding them exactly the distance as would be expected if there was a black hole at the center of the cluster.
This is a critical discovery that astronomers have been searching for, as one of the lead researcher said ‘’ We want to find intermediate-mass black holes because they are the missing link between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. They may be the primordial seeds that grew into the monsters we see in the centers of galaxies today.’’
