Skip to footer

'Bonanza' of black holes has party, doesn't invite us

Poring over 13 years worth of X-ray telescope data, scientists have discovered 26 black holes in a neighboring galaxy.

|
University of Utah/AP
This undated image provided by the University of Utah shows the Andromeda galaxy, made by the Hubble Space Telescope.

There’s a party in another galaxy, and none of us were invited. 

Scientists have discovered a “bonanza" of black holes in the Andromeda Galaxy, one of the galaxies nearest to our own, some 2.5 million light years away.

As their name suggests, black holes are tough to find. These latest 26 black holes were found using more than 13 years of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Scientists say they expect to find more in the galaxy, where nine had already been identified using previous research, bringing the total discovered there to 35.

"While we are excited to find so many black holes in Andromeda, we think it's just the tip of the iceberg," said Robin Barnard, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the lead author of the paper that will be published later this month in The Astrophysical Journal, in a press release.

The Andromeda’s new black holes belong to the stellar mass category, which form when stars with masses about five to 10 times that of our sun collapse under the force of their own gravity. The result is an object of such small size, compressed into such a small volume, that its gravitational force is inescapable – even to light itself.

Astronomers can then detect these otherwise invisible objects when material is tugged from a companion star and heated up to produce radiation – visible with X-rays – before it disappears into the black hole. 

The “bonanza” of black holes aren’t exactly “near Earth,” as a Fox News headline puts it. That would be worrying. They aren't even in our galaxy, and the galaxy where those black holes are housed won’t be near to us for several billion years, when the Andromeda and Milky Way are expected to collide, bringing the party to us.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Bonanza' of black holes has party, doesn't invite us
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0613/Bonanza-of-black-holes-has-party-doesn-t-invite-us
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe