"Nothing" in the title means "no black hole accretion disk", although they know that a "mini supermassive black hole" must exist there because the stars in the center are moving too fast. Anyway, the lack of accretion is not exactly unexpected. FTA:
This extreme quietness isn't entirely surprising. Omega Centauri likely represents the stripped core of a dwarf galaxy consumed by the Milky Way billions of years ago. The cluster's central regions may simply lack sufficient gas for the black hole to accrete.
Universe Today is awesome. Loved how they publish articles since I first found them from Astronomy Cast with Pamela and Frazier more than 15 years ago. Glad to see it keep growing with so many gifted science communicators.
The lack of intermediate mass black holes makes a lot of sense.
Small black holes form from very large stars, who typically only last a few million, or in some cases a few hundred thousand years. They could go from newly formed star to black hole before they leave the relatively dense nebula in which they formed. Thus it is very likely that most new black holes are very likely to grow rapidly, shortly after they form. Some of the gas clouds in the Milky way, like the Hercules Cluster, have masses of tens of thousands times the mass of the Sun.
Large stars that are ejected from the cluster in which they formed, before they become black holes, are likely to stay as stellar mass black holes.
"Nothing" in the title means "no black hole accretion disk", although they know that a "mini supermassive black hole" must exist there because the stars in the center are moving too fast. Anyway, the lack of accretion is not exactly unexpected. FTA:
So.. just a massive black hole?
Haha perhaps. Anyway it's thousands of solar masses.
Here's the original article by Mark Thompson at Universe Today.
Exact same words. But with no ads or tracking.
Phys.org is a content aggregator. They republish freely available content with their own ads, tracking, etc.
Physorg is a plague on the average persons science understanding.
Universe Today is awesome. Loved how they publish articles since I first found them from Astronomy Cast with Pamela and Frazier more than 15 years ago. Glad to see it keep growing with so many gifted science communicators.
The lack of intermediate mass black holes makes a lot of sense.
Small black holes form from very large stars, who typically only last a few million, or in some cases a few hundred thousand years. They could go from newly formed star to black hole before they leave the relatively dense nebula in which they formed. Thus it is very likely that most new black holes are very likely to grow rapidly, shortly after they form. Some of the gas clouds in the Milky way, like the Hercules Cluster, have masses of tens of thousands times the mass of the Sun.
Large stars that are ejected from the cluster in which they formed, before they become black holes, are likely to stay as stellar mass black holes.