Hubble finds an unexpected collection of black holes

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Hubble's view of the NGC 6397 global body group
Hubble’s view of the NGC 6397 global body group. NASA, ESA, and T. Brown and S. Casertano (STScI) Acknowledgments: NASA, ESA, and J. Anderson (STScI)

When scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope turned their attention to a global browser called NGC 6397, they intended to find one medium-sized black hole in the center. But instead, they found something more strange. They found evidence of a collection of smaller black holes, in a cosmic object that could teach us about the development of black holes.

There is a “missing connection” in the world of black holes, because we see black holes of constant size caused by star collapse and huge black holes at the heart of galaxies called horrible black holes. But we can almost see black holes between those two sizes. This means that we don’t really understand how black holes come together or grow.

Hunting medium-sized black holes, or medium-sized black holes (IMBHs) as they are called, attracted researchers’ attention to NGC 6397. They were hoping for one of the missing link black holes. locate at the center of the browser. But that’s not what they found.

Artist's influence on black hole density in NGC 6397
This is the opinion of an artist created to show the density of black holes at the center of NGC 6397. In fact, the small black holes here are far too small for the direct viewing capabilities of any existing or existing telescope. in the pipeline, including Hubble. It is estimated that this global cluster could fall into more than 20 black holes. ESA / Hubble, N. Bartmann

The orbits of the stars in the cluster indicated that there was not a single point of orbit around which they departed. They had a random orbit which was best defined by a number of major points.

“We found very strong evidence of an invisible mass in the middle of the densely populated areas of the cluster, but we were surprised to find that this extra mass is not like points but has expanded to a few per cent. the size of the browser, ”lead researcher Eduardo Vitral explained in a statement.

That made them think that what they were looking at was just a collection of smaller black holes, each too small to be designed exactly. But their presence can be detected by looking at the movements of the stars.

This unusual finding is in line with other recent work suggesting that the central regions of global cooling may be filled with smaller black holes. “Our study is the first finding that provided both the mass and extent of what appears to be a collection of mostly black holes in a collapsed global browser,” Vitral said.

Scientists believe that these black holes were formed from the remains of the giant stars that once inhabited the group before they ran out of fuel and fell into themselves. These stars sank to the center of the cluster as a result of their mass, creating a density of smaller black holes.

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