September 13, 2000

1 min read

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A New Black Hole

By Kate Wong

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Image: NASA/SAO/CXC

Evidence that the heavens house a previously unknown type of black hole was reported by scientists yesterday. Data from NASA¿s Chandra X-Ray Observatory revealed a hole (right) some 600 light-years from the center of the starburst galaxy M82. The brightness of the x-ray source indicates that this moon-size hole has the mass of at least 500 suns, making it intermediate between stellar black holes and the supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies. "This opens a whole new field of research," said Martin Ward, a lead author on one of three papers to be published on the subject. "No one was sure that such black holes existed, especially outside the centers of galaxies."

Earlier data from the Roentgen Satellite and the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics had suggested that M82 might contain a large black hole outside its nucleus, but the Chandra results seal the deal. The new object might have resulted from the collapse of a "hyperstar" or the growth of a smaller black hole through mergers with others nearby.

Kate Wong is an award-winning science writer and senior editor for features at Scientific American, where she has focused on evolution, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology and animal behavior. She is fascinated by human origins, which she has covered for nearly 30 years. Recently she has become obsessed with birds. Her reporting has taken her to caves in France and Croatia that Neandertals once called home to the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana in search of the oldest stone tools in the world, as well as to Madagascar on an expedition to unearth ancient mammals and dinosaurs, the icy waters of Antarctica, where humpback whales feast on krill, and a “Big Day” race around the state of Connecticut to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. Wong is co-author, with Donald Johanson, of Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biological anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan. Follow her on Bluesky @katewong.bsky.social

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