Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Found In Omega Centauri 89
esocid sends us to the European Space Agency's site for news of a new discovery that appears to resolve the long-standing mystery surrounding Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. The object is 17,000 light-years distant and is located just above the plane of the Milky Way. Seen from a dark rural area in the southern hemisphere, Omega Centauri appears almost as large as the full moon. What the researchers discovered is a black hole of 40,000 solar masses in the cluster's center. From the press release: "Images obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and data obtained by the GMOS spectrograph on the Gemini South telescope in Chile show that Omega Centauri appears to harbor an elusive intermediate-mass black hole in its center... Exactly how Omega Centauri should be classified has always been a contentious topic. It was first listed in Ptolemy's catalog nearly two thousand years ago as a single star. Edmond Halley reported it as a nebula in 1677. In the 1830s the English astronomer John Herschel was the first to recognize it as a globular cluster. Now, more than a century later, this new result suggests Omega Centauri is not a globular cluster at all, but a dwarf galaxy stripped of its outer stars. According to scientists, these intermediate-mass black holes could turn out to be baby supermassive black holes."
Black Holes are like buses... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Baby black hole (Score:5, Funny)
What will they name it? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Baby black hole (Score:4, Funny)
Wow! Goldilocks it is. (Score:5, Funny)
Now that we've found the most average, space bears will come and blast us into porridge.
Astronomy kicks ass.
Especially when the universe works like my mind wants it to [slashdot.org].
Re:Baby black hole (Score:2, Funny)
How dare they (Score:3, Funny)
"baby supermassive black holes.." (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How dare they (Score:3, Funny)
to clarify... (Score:5, Funny)
So, instead of medium-size, they might actually be small big?
Re:Wow! Goldilocks it is. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow! Goldilocks it is. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:to clarify... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What will they name it? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:"baby supermassive black holes.." (Score:1, Funny)
Funny, I was just going to say "Those have got to be either the title of the latest U2 album, or some crazy pr0n." But as it relates to actual black holes your proposed name is superb...
Re:Wow! Goldilocks it is. (Score:3, Funny)
Stun, Kill and Porridge.
They'll hunt them down and find them, of course. In Ursa Major. When they open them up, they'll find that inside, they're full of people.
'Cause you know, sometimes you eat the space bear, sometimes the space bear eats you.
Why does the universe DO this? (Score:3, Funny)