globular cluster tagged posts

Astronomers find black hole in Sagittarius constellation

Sagittarius

Sagittarius region of milky way. Credit: Wikipedia

A new ‘missing-link’ black hole in the Milky Way galaxy, hidden in the Sagittarius constellation has been found by an international team. The black hole is located ~26,000 light years, or 7.9 Kiloparsecs (kpc), from Earth in a globular cluster called, NGC 6624. A globular cluster is a gravitationally bound swarm of millions of old stars occupying regions that are just a few light years across. The team, led by Dr Benetge Perera, have found evidence that the millisecond pulsar (PSR B1820-30A) – a pulsar is highly magnetized, rapidly rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation – in NGC 6624 is most likely orbiting around an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) located at the cluster’s centre...

Read More

‘Mosh Pits’ in Star Clusters a likely Source of LIGO’s 1st Black Holes


LIGO’s 1st detection of merging black holes ‘perfectly consistent’ with Northwestern model. In a new study, the scientists show their theoretical predictions last year were correct: The historic merger of 2 massive black holes detected Sept. 14, 2015, could easily have been formed through dynamic interactions in the star-dense core of an old globular cluster. These binary black holes are born in the chaotic “mosh pit” of a globular cluster, kicked out of the cluster and then eventually merge into one black hole. This theory, known as dynamical formation, is 1 of 2 main channels for forming binary black holes detected by Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory).

Colliding black holes do not emit light; however, they do release a phenomenal amount of energy as gr...

Read More