Astronomers find rare intermediate-mass black hole in distant star cluster
Scientists have found a rare intermediate-mass black hole, NGC 6099 HLX-1, hanging out about 450 million light-years away in the galaxy NGC 6099.
What makes it special? It's drifting inside a small star cluster, around 40,000 light-years from the galaxy's center—far from where most black holes usually lurk.
Black hole's glow peaked in 2012, faded by 2023
The black hole gives off super-hot X-rays (think: 3 million degrees Celsius), which are signs of a tidal disruption event—basically, it shredded a star that got too close.
First spotted by Chandra in 2009, its X-ray glow peaked in 2012 and faded by 2023.
Hubble has confirmed there's a tight group of stars around this black hole
Hubble has confirmed there's a tight group of stars around this black hole, making it easy for the IMBH to snack on more stars.
With the Vera C. Rubin Observatory starting its big sky survey in 2025, astronomers hope to find more of these mysterious "in-between" black holes and figure out how they shape galaxies.