Using an array of ALMA radio telescopes, astronomers tracked the movements of molecular gas streams located 20 light years from the center of the Milky Way, which indicate their apparent orbital motion around an invisible object, possibly an intermediate-mass wandering black hole.
Our results provide new indirect evidence of the existence of sleeping intermediate-mass wandering black holes in the center of our Galaxy and show that high-speed compact clouds can be their markers.
Black holes are quite difficult to detect if they do not absorb matter or do not collide, because during quiet times these monsters do not emit electromagnetic radiation, as it cannot reach the speed that will allow it to leave the horizon. Thus, black holes are invisible to our tools until they start doing something noticeable.
Nevertheless, it is known that there are stellar-mass black holes formed as a result of the collapse of the star’s core and dozens of times the mass of the Sun, and supermassive black holes that are “heavier” than the Sun hundreds of thousands, millions and billions of times.
There is a huge gap between these two extremes, although there are fairly reliable evidence indicating the existence of intermediate-mass black holes, but so far they have not been found.
When I first checked the ALMA data, I was really excited because the observed gas showed an obvious orbital motion that strongly indicates the presence of an invisible massive object,.
-Shun Takekawa, lead author of the study from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
Based on the shape and movement of gas flows, the team concluded that an invisible object is massively more than 32,000 times the Sun and comparable in size to Jupiter. The results, according to the authors of the study, make it a very strong contender for a black hole of intermediate mass and provide a new method for their detection.
High-resolution observations of compact high-speed molecular gas clouds can increase the number of candidates for inactive black holes, providing a new perspective for searching for“ missing ”gravity monsters of intermediate mass,.
-Shun Takekawa
A wandering black hole in the Milky Way
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