The object is located about 200 light-years from the center of our galaxy
Japanese astrophysicists using the Nobeyama radio telescope and the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) radio telescopes installed in the Chilean Atacama Desert discovered a black hole in the Milky Way with a mass of about 100 thousand Suns. The scientific discovery is reported by the journal Nature.
The attention of scientists was attracted by a cloud of molecular gas CO-0.40-0.22, which had a surprisingly wide range of speeds. A careful study of its kinematics suggested that the cloud consists of two components. One of them has a low density, but at the same time a significant scatter of molecular velocities, and the other, on the contrary, has an extremely high density, but a narrow velocity dispersion.
In addition, it was found that as the cloud molecules approach the center of mass, their velocity increases and reaches a maximum at the point closest to the object. The performed computer simulations showed that the model using a gravity source with a mass of about 100 thousand Suns showed the best fit to the observed picture.
Since X-ray and infrared observations did not reveal any compact objects in the center of the cloud, astrophysicists suggested that either a cluster of neutron star remnants or a medium-mass black hole could be hidden there. However, the first option, according to scientists, is implausible.
“We assume that CO-0.40-0.22 was the core of a dwarf galaxy that was swallowed up by our Milky Way,” commented the head of the study, Keio University professor Tomoharu Oka.
Theoretical studies have predicted that there should be between 100 million and one billion black holes in the Milky Way, but so far scientists have discovered only 60 of them.
Anatoly Krivtsov
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