A gigantic black hole within a normal galaxy has surprised researchers. The black hole is as massive as 7 billion suns and surpassed astronomers’ expectations by dozen times.
Scientists say the findings have implications for most current models of galaxy formation. The supermassive black hole known as CID-947 was analyzed by astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton spacecraft.
The formation of the black hole, according to researchers, took place in the early universe about 11.7 billion years ago. The black hole has appeared to have a very high mass, about 7 billion suns, given the very fast motion of gas near the black hole.
Our survey was designed to observe the average objects, not the exotic ones. This project specifically targeted moderate black holes that inhabit typical galaxies today. It was quite a shock to see such a ginormous black hole”, said study co-author C. Megan Urry, of Yale University.
However, what really surprised the scientists was the mass of the galaxy surrounding this black hole. The findings show that a gigantic black hole exist within a normal-size galaxy, said lead author Benny Trakhtenbrot, an astrophysicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Trakhtenbrot told Space. com that nearly one-tenth of the mass of the host is possessed by the black hole. The researchers were so surprised with the findings that they called outside experts to verify their results independently.
