🚀 Chinese astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery that could unlock secrets of black hole evolution! Researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) have found compelling evidence supporting the existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), the elusive link between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes.
IMBHs, which possess masses ranging from hundreds to thousands of times that of our Sun, have been a mysterious missing piece in the puzzle of cosmic evolution. Their existence has long been speculated but elusive to confirm until now. 🕳️✨
The breakthrough came when scientists identified a high-velocity runaway star, J0731+3717, hurling away from the M15 globular cluster at an astonishing speed of nearly 550 kilometers per second. This star was ejected about 20 million years ago, and its extreme velocity provides strong evidence for an IMBH lurking in the cluster's center.
Using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft, China's Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), and other spectroscopic surveys, researchers analyzed the star's chemical makeup and age, finding it to be nearly identical to M15. 📡🔭
Huang Yang, an associate professor at NAOC, explained, \"Such a high-speed ejection requires a tight binary star to pass within one astronomical unit of an IMBH. The black hole's tidal forces would rip the binary apart, capturing one star and hurling the other outward.\"
This phenomenon, known as the Hills mechanism, effectively rules out alternative explanations like dense clusters of neutron stars. With ongoing data collection from Gaia and LAMOST, scientists anticipate discovering more stars similar to J0731+3717, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of IMBHs. 🌌🔍
Stay tuned as these discoveries pave the way for new insights into the universe's most enigmatic objects!
Reference(s):
Chinese scientists find proof of intermediate-mass black holes
cgtn.com
