The Night Sky Guy

Black Hole ‘Seeds’ at Milky Way Centre

More than 30,000 light years from Earth lying at the core of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, are weird clumps of warm, dense gas that may represent seeds that will grow into monster black holes one day, according to a new study.

A team of Japanese astronomers announced this bizarre finding this week using powerful radio telescopes. Their observations show that three of these masses are growing in size, thanks to supernovae explosions  estimated to have occurred 60,000 years ago.  What is even stranger is that the team calculated the power of that ancient eruption as being equivalent to 200 individual supernovae going off simultaneously!  Since no single star could cause such an epic blast, researchers believe that a massive star cluster  – equivalent to 100,000 times the mass of the sun – lies hidden behind the veil of one of these masses and is the source of the power.

While backyard astronomers don’t have the technology to see these exotic objects, they can find its general location in the night sky. Face the south sky on any late summer night and look toward the horizon for the constellation Sagittarius. look for a bright asterism – or star pattern – in the shape of a giant teapot – that marks the main section of the constellation.  This also marks the general direction of the centre of the Milky Way – 30 thousand light years away!

Read more about this discovery here

Bookmark