Aussie astronomer part of world 1st discovery of "middleweight" black hole

An astronomer from the University of Queensland (UoQ) was announced Thursday to have played a pivotal role in the discovery of a "middleweight" black hole in space, after a 40 year search.

UoQ Associate Prof. Holger Baumgardt says the discovery would help astronomers to understand the creation of galaxies and how they evolve.

According to Baumgardt, black holes are either small, slightly larger in mass than our own Sun, or extraordinarily large, and weigh in at millions of times the mass of our own celestial star.

However, this study proved there is a black hole in the middle, a "middleweight" weighing in at roughly 2,200 times the mass of our own Sun.

"An intermediate-mass black hole at the cluster's centre acts like a cosmic spoon that stirs the pot, causing the stars near it to slingshot at higher speeds and greater distances, imparting a subtle signal that astronomers can measure," Baumgardt told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

But the astronomer was quick to point out that this discovery will shed no new light on the question of whether there is life in space.

"What we have found is not telling us anything about life in the universe, because a black hole is a place where there should be no life, but it tells us something about the evolution of galaxies on a large scale," Baumgardt said.

source: Xinhua