The scientists have announced that intermediate-mass black holes (also known as mid-sized black holes) are a rarity, and it is usually really hard to find them in the Universe. Recently, the Hubble Space Telescope was used to found a particular black hole of intermediate level positioned inside a star cluster. This discovery is an important clue to help analyzers to understand better the evolution of the black holes.
Scientists spotted a mid-sized black hole
The lead investigator of this research is Dachen Lin and the team of scientists is part of the University of New Hampshire. They declared that the intermediate-mass black holes are incredibly elusive objects.
In addition to that, the characteristics that they may present can be different from one candidate to the other. This automatically implies that there is no pattern that the scientists can follow to study the formation of this particular type of black hole.
The impossibility to spot the central black holes with easiness is caused by the fact that they are not producing as much energy as the supermassive black holes. Because the gravitational pull is lower than for supermassive black holes, their ability to consume stars is way more reduced.
Mid-sized black holes can explain the formation of supermassive black holes
The Astrophysical Journal Letters have stated that the new spot intermediate black hole has a mass that is 50.000 times bigger than the one of the Sun. The study was stared back in 2006 when NASA and EDA registered an X-Ray flare.
Moreover, as the researcher Natalie Webb from the Univerity of Toulouse states, by adding more X-Ray to the observations that are already carried out, the researchers can get a better insight into the total energy output.
In addition to this, this allows the researchers to determine the type of star that was disrupted by the black hole. They are confident that this study on mid-sized black holes will offer more data to determine the origins and formation of supermassive black holes.
