Palomar 5 In Focus: Oversized Black Hole Population Discovered In This Star Cluster

Milky Way – taken by Stéphane Guisard, an ESO engineer and world-renowned astrophotographer, from Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope, this image directly benefits from the quality of Paranal’s sky, one of the best on the planet. Image credit:  Guisard – CC BY 4.0

 A billion years from now, the  Palomar 5 cluster will dissolve as a 100% black hole cluster, but for now, there is still much time to study it.

An international team of astrophysicists led by the University of Barcelona has focused their research on a unique globular star cluster – Palomar 5. The distinguishing features of Palomar 5 are likely the result of an oversized black hole population of more than 100 of them in the center of the cluster.

Palomar 5 – located in the Serpens constellation at a distance of about 80,000 light-years – was discovered in 1950 by Walter Baade. It is one of the roughly 150 globular clusters that orbit around the Milky Way.

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Source: https://www.messagetoeagle.com/palomar-5-in-focus-oversized-black-hole-population-discovered-in-this-star-cluster/