
The observation of the freakishly huge black hole was made using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at the McDonald Observatory in Texas. Since I had just visited the HET as part of the research for my book, I submitted one of my photos to illustrate the story…and it was accepted! [Credit: moi]
A new observation has revealed a galaxy that isn’t just bending the rule, but completely breaking it. In most systems, the black hole’s mass is about 0.1 percent of the mass of the galaxy’s central bulge. Remco van den Bosch and colleagues identified a black hole with a mass that’s about 59 percent of the mass of the central bulge. In fact, this black hole is one of the most massive ever observed, a striking discovery in a galaxy much smaller than our own. The galaxy itself is a bit on the small side, and the researchers suggest that we might want to look at the black holes in more galaxies this size. [Read more…]