Hidden Giant: champion among Black Holes

Discovered the most massive to date black holes - a pair of giants with a mass of 10 billion times the sun.

A team of astronomers led by Professor Chung - Pei Ma (Chung-Pei Ma), and graduate student Nicholas McConnell (Nicholas McConnell) University of California conducted a monitoring of fast-moving stars in the centers of galaxies NGC 3842 and NGC 4889 and its dark halo - diffuse outer regions. Comparing the results of these observations, the scientists were able to determine the masses of black holes at the centers of these galaxies. The results of their work being published in the December issue of the journal Nature. Observations of fast-moving stars were performed using the Gemini telescopes and the Keck in Hawaii, the dark halo - in the McDonald Observatory, University of Texas. Researchers from the University of Texas, Karl Gebhardt (Karl Gebhardt) and Jeremy Murphy (Jeremy Murphy), who made ​​observations using a powerful spectrograph at McDonald Observatory, and also found the previous ... Perhaps these supermassive black holes - all that remains of the two quasars that existed in the early universe. They are removed from the Earth more than 300 million light-years. ... But if in youth they were so great, then where are they now? . - These two supermassive black hole mass is comparable to the young and quasars may be the missing link between today and the observed black holes ... The first of the newly discovered black hole has a mass equal to 9.7 billion solar, and is located in the elliptical galaxy NGC 3842 in the cluster, which is located 320 million light years from Earth in the constellation Leo. The second ( perhaps even surpassing the first by weight) is located in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4889 - the brightest in the cluster of Coma Berenices at a distance of about 336 million light years from Earth. According to McConnell, the event horizon of each of these black holes, five times greater than a diameter of Pluto's orbit, and 200 times - the Earth's orbit. ... Ma believes that these giant black holes were not seen until now, as they lead a quiet existence, emptying his neighborhood about 10 billion. years ago. The interstellar gas and dust is not absorbed by the black hole, since turned into a star, quietly spinning in their orbits, and the vast galaxy of trillions of stars and black holes in the center of giant quietly settled in the middle of their clusters. Astronomers think that many (if not all ) galaxies in the center of a black hole. And the more the galaxy - the more massive the black hole it. The largest black holes are elliptical galaxies, which presumably formed by the merger of two spiral galaxies. A merger of elliptical galaxies can cause an even larger elliptical galaxy with a black hole whose mass is close to 10 billion solar, and may increase due to absorption of the interstellar gas remaining after the merger, says Ma. Multiple merge - this is one of the ways of these giants, she says.