Huge black hole 8,200 times the size of the Sun is discovered in a neighbouring star cluster – and scientists say it’s the ‘missing link’ in the formation of these mysterious voids

While we are learning much about the mysteries of black holes, many questions remain about these enigmatic objects.

Now scientists have discovered a massive black hole with a mass more than 8,200 times that of our sun in a nearby star cluster. This hole could unlock the secrets of these voids.

Located at the heart of the Omega Centauri cluster, 18,000 light-years away, this super-dense object is the closest example of a massive black hole ever discovered.

While it may seem enormous, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the University of Utah say it is only an intermediate-sized black hole.

According to researchers, this unique discovery could provide the ‘missing link’ in the mysterious evolution of black holes.

Black holes are formed when extremely large stars collapse after using up the last of their fuel.

As the stars fall inward, their remaining mass is compressed into an object so dense that even light cannot escape its gravity.

These objects range in size from “stellar black holes” with masses only a few times that of our sun, to truly enormous monsters called “supermassive black holes,” with millions or billions of stellar masses.

Co-author Matthew Whittaker, a graduate student at the University of Utah, said: ‘There are black holes slightly more massive than our sun that look like ants or spiders. They’re hard to find, but they’re everywhere in the universe.

“Then you have supermassive black holes that are like Godzilla in the centers of galaxies, tearing things apart, and we can easily see those.”

However, sThe so-called ‘intermediate black holes’ are extremely difficult to observe, because galaxies typically only have massive black holes at their centers.

Mr Whittaker says: ‘These intermediate-mass black holes are a bit like Bigfoot. Spotting them is like finding the first evidence of Bigfoot: people panic.’

Happy, The unique history of the Omega Centauri cluster provided researchers with a perfect opportunity to find one of these rare objects.

Scientists believe that Omega Centauri was once an independent galaxy that was swallowed up by the Milky Way billions of years ago.

When the outer stars are removed, all that remains is the dense core of stars that we can see with our telescopes. This is all that once formed the core of the galaxy.

That made it highly likely that a young black hole was trapped at the heart of Omega Centauri, frozen in time like an insect in amber.

Because it could not feed on surrounding stars, scientists predicted that the medium-mass black hole would still be in the same state as when it was first swallowed by the Milky Way.

To test this theory, researchers studied 500 images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Although most of these images were taken only to calibrate Hubble’s instruments, they still allowed researchers to track the speed of 1.4 million stars.

Of those 1.4 million, scientists discovered seven stars near the center that were moving at unexpectedly high speeds.

Dr. Maximilian Häberle from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy says: ‘Finding lightning-fast stars and documenting their motion was like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

Just one fast moving star would not have proven anything, as the rapid passage of the star could have been caused by several factors.

However, the fact that seven stars are moving rapidly in the same region is strong evidence that they are being dragged along by the gravity of an extremely dense object.

By determining the speed of those seven lightning-fast stars, Dr. Häberle and his co-authors were able to determine the likely mass and location of that hidden object.

As they had predicted, this object, with a mass of at least 8,200 solar masses, was likely an example of the long-awaited medium-mass black hole.

Co-author Dr. Nadine Neumayer, also from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, said: ‘Previous studies have raised critical questions such as: “Where are the superfast stars?”

‘We now have an answer to that question and confirmation that Omega Centauri contains a black hole with an intermediate mass.’

The researchers now plan to study the center of Omega Centauri in more detail and have already received permission to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

But because this black hole has a lower mass, it can take hundreds of years for the lightning-fast stars to complete one orbit.

This means that it may remain a challenge for future generations to fully study this black hole.