Supermassive black holes could be common in the Universe

Don’t look now, but there just might be a supermassive black hole lurking behind you.

According to a new study published in journal Nature, the discovery of a supermassive black hole in a nearby, by sparsely populated section of the universe indicates these powerful objects may be more common than previously believed.

Where are these supermassive black holes located?

So far, the largest supermassive black holes, those measuring masses about 10 billion times the mass of our sun, have been discovered at the cores of huge galaxies in regions packed with other large galaxies.

The newly found black hole is in a galaxy, NGC 1600, opposite from the Coma Cluster in the sky, which is a relative wasteland.

While locating a gigantic black hole in a crowded  location of the universe isn’t surprising, like a golf ball on a fairway at The Masters, it seemed more unlikely they might be discovered in the universe’s back waters.

“Rich groups of galaxies like the Coma Cluster are very, very rare, but there are quite a few galaxies the size of NGC 1600 that reside in average-size galaxy groups,” said study author Chung-Pei Ma, a University of California Berkeley professor of astronomy. “So the question now is, ‘Is this the tip of an iceberg?’ Maybe there are a lot more monster black holes out there that don’t live in a skyscraper in Manhattan, but in a tall building somewhere in the Midwestern plains.”

Interestingly, the stars around the center of NGC 1600 are moving as if the black hole were a binary. Binary black holes are projected to be typical in large galaxies, since galaxies are believed to grow by combining with other galaxies, each of which would apparently deliver a central black hole with it. These black holes would probably drain into the core of the new and bigger galaxy and, after an orbital dance, mix with the release of gravitational waves.

The planned Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA) is designed to find gravitational waves generated by the merger of significant black holes, while other groups are on the lookout for proof of gravitational waves from significant black hole mergers in nanosecond blips in the exactly-timed flashes of millisecond pulsars.

Due to the fact NGC 1600 is an old galaxy with minor new star formation, Ma said it, too, may possess an ancient quasar that once burned brightly but is now dormant. It would be the first uncovered in a sparsely populated area of the regional universe, Ma said.

“The brightest quasars, probably hosting the most massive black holes, don’t necessarily have to live in the densest regions of the universe,” she said. “NGC 1600 is the first very massive black hole that lives outside a rich environment in the local universe, and could be the first example of a descendent of a very luminous quasar that also didn’t live in a privileged site.”

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Image credit: ESA/Hubble

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