Astronomers Measure Tiny Black Hole in Nearby Dwarf Galaxy
Astronomers Measure Tiny Black Hole in Nearby Dwarf Galaxy
By Passant Rabie 2019-06-12T11:07:16Z Science & Astronomy
Scientists measured a small black hole in a nearby dwarf galaxy to better understand supermassive blackholes.
The galaxy NGC 4395 as seen by the Schulman Telescope at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona.(Image: © Schulman Telescope)
When people think of a black hole, they typically picture a large, burning cosmic being that's a million or billion times larger than our sun. However, not all black holes are supermassive, and the smaller ones matter too.
A team of scientists from the University of Michigan measured the mass of a small black hole in a nearby dwarf galaxy, estimating the black hole to be around 40 times smaller than researchers had previously thought.
The object, located at the center of the dwarf galaxy NGC 4395, is around 10,000 times the mass of the sun, the researchers determined.
Although astronomers believe that every galaxy the size of or larger than the Milky Way harbors a supermassive black hole at its center, researchers don't know a lot about the black holes of smaller galaxies — or whether black holes even exist in all galaxies.
More:
https://www.space.com/dwarf-galaxy-small-black-hole-measured.html
