This is a cool new result. Astronomers went looking for a giant black hole in the center of a globular cluster (a clump of very old stars). Instead, they found what appears to be a SWARM of smaller black holes -- the kind made when massive stars die.https://esahubble.org/news/heic2103/?lang …
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It's interesting for a few reasons! One is that it gives clues about the formation of "intermediate-mass black holes" -- those in the gap between dead-star-mass and supermassive (million-solar-mass or more objects, found in the centers of galaxies), even by not finding one.
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Another reason this is interesting is that dense cores of globular clusters like this one have been thought to be places where stellar-mass black holes could merge to form larger objects, possibly explaining some of the signals we've detected via gravitational waves.
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En réponse à @AstroKatie
Do you think there’s a chance IMBHs don’t actually exist, and instead we get supermassive BHs when those clusters start merging with each other? Basically a cascade effect of quick (in galactic timescale terms) expansion as everything gets hoovered in?
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En réponse à @ChrisWarcraft @AstroKatie
The thing is (pardon me if I'm mistaken) that a cascade effect like that wouldn't happen JUST because of the presence of black holes. A black home doesn't have GREATER gravity than the star it essentially replaces; it's just compacted into a much smaller area.
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En réponse à @TristanZamboni @AstroKatie
Right, I’m talking about if two of the black holes merge with each other (probably through decaying orbits) that changes *how* the local gravity is focused, and could potentially lead to a chain reaction of more decaying orbits, accumulating more and more mass in a single spot.
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The mass for the SMBHs has to come from somewhere, and in the absence of IMBHs my first guess would be to figure out if a cascade like that is possible, and if the other stars in the area could potentially get pulled in from having their orbits altered by the shift in gravity.
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I could also be talking out my ass! I’m not an astrophysicist, that’s why I asked one :)
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En réponse à @ChrisWarcraft @AstroKatie
I'm somewhat talking outta my ass too. Just a dedicated enthusiast.
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