Member-only story
Found: 1 Intermediate mass black hole
A heart of darkness lurks in the heart of the ω Centauri globular cluster.
My entire life, researchers have been asking: are there black holes in the hearts of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters? We know they lurk in the centers of large galaxies, and their sizes are proportional to the sizes and motions of the spheroids of stars they occupy. It has long been hoped that the relationship would extend down to smaller spheres of stars, but we just haven’t been able to find any evidence… until now.
The story up until now
As the story goes so far, astronomers have found binary star systems where only one star is visible and its motions indicate a second mass so small and dense that only a black hole can explain what we see. These stellar mass black holes range from 5 to 150 solar masses in size. On the other side of the size scale, the motions of stars and gas in the cores of galaxies indicate the presence of supermassive black holes with masses larger than 100,000 solar masses.
It’s been assumed that black holes between 150 and 100,000 solar masses should exist, but … it’s easy to hide when you don’t emit or reflect light, and black holes… don’t emit or reflect light.
