14 DAY TRIAL // Hundreds of black holes, weighing it at several thousand solar masses each, could be roaming the Milky Way, say investigators who recently conducted a new scientific study on the issue. These object are massive enough to devour entire planets whole.
Seeing black holes directly is impossible, but experts know enough about these objects now to conduct computer simulations of their behavior. They input known data about these massive gravitational sources, and then stand back while computers analyze potential courses of development.
In such a study, experts found that hundreds of black holes may be roaming the Milky Way, Daily Galaxy reports.
What's interesting to note about this study is that it was focused on a hypothetical type of black hole, of an intermediate mass. Until now, astronomers have only seen either small or supermassive black holes, but nothing in between.
At this point, it's not even clear whether the intermediate mass variety even exists or not. The new computer simulation assumes the the objects exist, say researchers from the Vanderbilt University.
“Rogue black holes like this would be very difficult to spot. Unless it's swallowing a lot of gas, about the only way to detect the approach of such a black hole would be to observe the way in which its super-strength gravitational field bends the light that passes nearby, says Kelly Holley-Bockelman.
“This produces an effect called gravitational lensing that would make background stars appear to shift and brighten momentarily,” adds the expert, who holds an appointment as an astronomer at Vanderbilt.
Theoretical physicists have proposed intermediate mass black holes as a possible power source for ultra-luminous X ray sources that dedicated space telescopes are observing in the Universe.
Numerical models are now suggesting that black hole mergers can result in the newly-formed black hole being kicked out of its location at speeds exceeding 4,000 kilometers per second.
“This is much higher than anyone predicted. Even the average kick velocity of 200 kilometers per second is extremely high when compared to the escape velocities of typical astronomical objects,” Holley-Bockelmann explains.
“We realized that basically any black hole merger would kick the new remnant out of a globular cluster, because the escape velocity is less than 100 kilometers per second,” the expert concludes.