Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered a black hole located in the proximity of two merged galaxies that is unusually star-deprived, providing evidence that black holes can shed weight just like humans. Supermassive black holes are located at the center of every massive galaxy in the universe and they typically contain large amounts of stars surrounding them. The recent discovery could help scientists gain insight into the evolution and behavior of black holes.
The hole was discovered in galaxy SDSS J1126+2944, which was created as a result of two smaller galaxies merging together, resulting in a pair of supermassive black holes coming together. Although one of these holes is surrounded by an expected amount of stars, the other is strangely lacking in star formations.
"One black hole is starved of stars, and has 500 times fewer stars associated with it than the other black hole," Julie Comerford, lead investigator of the research, said in a press release. "The question is why there's such a discrepancy."
Comerford believes that one possibility is that excessive gravitational and tidal forces tore the stars away from the black hole over the time period of the galactic merger. Alternatively, another possibility is that the black hole is an "intermediate" mass black hole, which refers to a black hole with a mass between 100 and 1 million times the mass of the sun and a lower number of stars in its surrounding sphere. Intermediate black holes can grow and eventually become supermassive black holes.
"Theory predicts that intermediate black holes should exist, but they are difficult to pinpoint because we don't know exactly where to look," said Scott Barrows, co-author of the study. "This unusual galaxy may provide a rare glimpse of one of these intermediate mass black holes."
Details of the research were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.
