Black holes observed generally are stellar-sized or supermassive. Medium size between the two are so difficult to find that Scientists are puzzled with the missing link understanding of Black hole evolution.
Supermassive black holes are discovered, observed and classified frequently. They are black holes devouring matter in an accretion disc. But recently astronomers have located a medium-sized black hole in the NGC 2276 host galaxy, 100 million light years away.
The black hole is extremely rare and it could be the missing link in black hole evolution. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Network found the black hole, thanks to radio waves from energetic sources in the cosmos.
Intermediate-mass black holes are notoriously difficult to find, and the one in question, NGC-2276-3c, is extremely important to astronomers. The black hole has qualities representative of both stellar-sized black holes and supermassive black holes so it helps tie the whole black hole family together.
The astronomers are researching how NGC-2276-3c reached its host galaxy. They believe the black hole may have formed in a dwarf galaxy before merging with NGC 2276. Studying NGC-2276-3c could help scientists better understand black hole growth and how black holes become supermassive in their respective galaxies.
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