International team of researchers In Germany, they recently discovered one of the rarest types of black holes in the universe. The researchers observed a cluster of stars near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A (Sgr A) at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. They then discovered signs of an intermediate-mass black hole, a type of black hole sometimes called the “missing ring” of black holes. .
Black holes range in size from supermassive to primordial, with the intermediate sitting above the primordial size. They are believed to have formed immediately after the Big Bang and acted as the “seeds” for creating supermassive black holes.
A cluster of stars believed to be the latest intermediate-mass black hole, called IRS 13, moved in an orderly manner when one would expect them to be randomly aligned. The researchers concluded that the star cluster must have interacted with the supermassive black hole, and “there must be something inside the cluster to maintain its observed compact form,” according to a statement from the University of Cologne.
Plans are underway for additional observations of the intermediate black hole. They will use the James Webb Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope currently under construction in Chile (and yes, that ).
Scientists have discovered In 2020, using the Hubble Space Telescope, they detected the waves caused by its formation. Until then, intermediate-mass black holes were considered the “missing link” between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes, and could provide more information about the formation of black holes and the universe.
