Even if you do n’t view yourself unmindful , everyone has lose their keys , phone , or wallet at some dot and not opine any less of themselves for it . You ’re lead to find more than a small sheepish , however , if the object you may not currently turn up is one of the biggest objects in the universe of discourse , say , a supermassive dark hole .
Abell 2261 is a giant of a galaxy cluster , and at its centre should be a supermassive black muddle – one of the largest in the world . However , astronomers searching for it have discover no evidence of it .
Almost every large galax in the universe has a supermassive fateful mess at its nerve center . Galaxy clusters are made up of 100 of thousands of galaxies bind together by gravity , with one extremely bright galaxy near their shopping centre , called the brightest clustering galaxy ( BCG ) .
Abell 2261 , located 2.7 billion light - age from Earth , is a BCG . Even as BCGs go , it ’s bighearted . It ’s about 1 million scant - age across – around 10 times that of the Milky Way – and has the gravid galactic core we know of . Because the size of supermassive black holes is link to the mass of a Galax urceolata , stargazer can calculate how big a black hole likely is , and they had expected a giant at its marrow .
harmonise toNASA , astronomer expected Abell 2261 to stop a black jam that press between 3 billion and 100 billion solar masses , rivaling some of the expectant ever discovered . To not rule one is , to put it lightly , a mystery .
Researchers had already searched through data point from the Chandra X - shaft of light Observatory from 1999 and 2004 , take care for the radiation that is grounds of superheated material surrounding a calamitous hole , but found none . Now with fresh Chandra data from 2018 , astronomers result by Kayhan Gultekin from the University of Michigan conducted a Modern hunt , and have successfully deepened the closed book .
In apaperaccepted for publishing in the journal American Astronomical Society , Gultekin and his team explored the estimate that the smutty hole was actually eject from the galax ’s centre . This violent event could have been the issue of two galaxies merging , with the smuggled hole at the center of each merging to form one large one .
When black maw merge , they produce gravitational waves ; disturbances or riffle in spacetime . If the gravitative wave detected were stronger in one guidance , it ’s thought the new huge fateful cakehole gets sent hurtle out from the galactic center in the diametrical way , which is have a go at it as a kick black hole . This is the theory at least , no evidence has been found of a recoiling black hole , and it ’s not have it away if supermassive black holes even get tightlipped enough to unite .
However , there are two sign that a unification between supermassive black holes may have taken place here . The first is that Abell 2261 has a astronomical core much magnanimous than expected for a galaxy of its size of it . The 2d is that the dumb concentration of stars is over 2,000 light - years away from the galactic center . researcher used Hubble data to see if they could locate clumps of stars that could have been travel by a recoiling disgraceful hole , but found none . They then turn to the more recent Chandra datum to try and detect radiation tie in with a bleak hole , and also find none .
This does n’t mean there is n’t a fateful hole there . We can usuallyonly find them when they ’re feeding , as they give off no radiation of their own , so it ’s potential it ’s eating cloth too slowly for us to be able-bodied to pick up with our current instruments . If theJames Webb Space Telescopemeets its launch deadline ofOctober 2021 , it may be able to observe the secret aim . If the JWST ca n’t find it , then it ’s potential the supermassive mordant hole got kicked out even further than idea . Perhaps next year , this whodunit will be figure out .
