Tanya Lewis | LiveScience
The recent finding of an intermediate-mass black hole provides evidence that could support some theories of how supermassive black holes form.
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Black holes are some of the strangest objects in the universe, and they typically fall into one of two size extremes: “small” ones that are dozens of times more massive than the sun and other “supermassive” black holes that are billions of times larger than our nearest star. But until now, astronomers had not seen good evidence of anything in between.
A recent discovery of an intermediate-mass black hole in the nearby galaxy Messier 82 (M82) offers the best evidence yet that a class of medium-size black holes exists. The finding may provide a missing link that could explain how supermassive black holes — which are found at the centers of most, if not all, galaxies — come to be, researchers say.
