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A new study focusing on areas away from the center of the galactic cluster Abell 2261 has raised hopes that soon there will be evidence of an enigmatic black hole that has so far slipped through astronomers’ nets.
While our galaxy, the Milky Way, is known to have a black hole as massive as four million suns lurking at its center, the gigantic galaxy at the heart of the cluster Abell 2261, which is about 2.7 billion light-years from the Earth. Earth, must have an even bigger one – a huge object with super-strong gravity with a mass equivalent to 3 billion to 100 billion suns, astronomers assume, based on the estimated mass of the Milky Way. A new study by a team led by Kayhan Gultekin of the University of Michigan has been accepted for publication in a journal of the American Astronomical Society.
The previously unheard of monster has so far dodged cameras: Researchers previously tried to look into X-rays coming from the center of the galaxy to discover the hidden black hole, but to no avail.
The new study conducted a more in-depth search of the galaxy using observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2018, including zones that tilted away from the central part of the galaxy on the assumption that the long-sought black hole would can be pushed aside after a powerful galactic fusion.
When black holes and other gigantic objects in space collide, they send ripples in spacetime, also known as gravitational waves. Scientists argue that if the emitted waves are not all symmetrical, they can push the merged supermassive black hole away from the center of the expanded galaxy in a process known as “bouncing back.”
Such side-shifted black holes are purely hypothetical to date and, unlike smaller black holes, have never been detected by telescopes.
“It is not known whether supermassive black holes even come close enough to produce and merge gravitational waves; so far, astronomers have only verified the mergers of much smaller black holes,” NASA officials wrote in a statement about the new study. , adding that the detection of these “would encourage scientists to use and develop observatories to look for gravitational waves resulting from the merging of supermassive black holes.”
The research team has now found that the densest concentrations of hot gas were not in the heart of the galaxy, but the Chandra data failed to map their location – even for now. The researchers are currently pinning their hopes on the successor to Hubble – NASA’s state-of-the-art large James Webb Space Telescope, due to be launched into space in October 2021.