Black Hole Bounty Captured in the Center of the Milky Way

Image Credit: NASA/Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Astronomers have discovered evidence for thousands of black holes located near the center of our Milky Way galaxy using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

This black hole bounty consists of stellar-mass black holes, which typically weigh between five to 30 times the mass of our Sun. These newly identified black holes were found within three light years — a relatively short distance on cosmic scales — of the supermassive black hole at our Galaxy's center known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*).

Source / Image Courtesy

In a new study, researchers predict that galaxies with a mass similar to the Milky Way should host several supermassive black holes.

A black hole, a million times more massive than the Sun, fired off a high energy x-ray burst detected by NASA's NuStar mission on its first observing campaign. Unidentified matter superheated to around 100,000,000° celsius emitted these hard x-rays.