Astronomers have spotted a number of monster black holes and said there is a possibility that there could be so many more, only waiting to be discovered.
British researchers recently discovered dust and gas particles that veiled five monster black holes. The previously hidden black holes, according to the researchers, may further lead to the discovery of millions more.
"For a long time we have known about supermassive black holes that are not obscured by dust and gas, but we suspected that many more were hidden from our view," said George Lansbury from the University of Durham's Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy and the study's lead researcher.
Supermassive black holes are known to be powerful cosmic "drains." These drains suck materials into a point of infinite density formed by the compressed mass of countless suns, from hundreds of thousands to billions.
The recently discovered five black holes were detected by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) orbiting observatory. The NuSTAR was launched in 2013. The space high-power telescope is designed for objects as unreachable as black holes, picking up high-energy X-rays from these distant objects.
"High-energy X-rays are more penetrating than low-energy X-rays, so we can see deeper into the gas burying the black holes," said Dr. Daniel Stern, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's NuSTAR project scientist in Pasadena. NuSTAR makes it possible for researchers to see through the gas and dust that hide the monster black holes, and learn why some black holes appear to be obscured.
The findings will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
According to the scientists, with the possibility of millions of undiscovered black holes, one may come within a million miles of our solar system. A black hole's gravity can change the Earth's orbit around the sun, and this could lead to extreme temperatures, maybe too much for the Earth to handle, as it could go from summers of hundreds of degrees Celsius to winters of sub-zero temperatures.
Lansbury added that although they have only uncovered five of the hidden black holes, millions more are estimated to exist in line with what they expect to see, based on extrapolated results across the universe.
The study, funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), allowed the astronomers to see these buried massive black holes clearly for the first time.
Photo: NASA Blueshift | Flickr
