Sep 12 2000
From The Space Library
NASA announced that scientists using the Chandra X-ray Observatory had confirmed the existence of "middleweight" black holes. Several groups of scientists used Chandra to focus on a mid-mass black hole located 600 light-years from the center of galaxy M82. Previous x-ray data from the German-U. S. ROSAT (Rontgensatellite) and the Japan-U. S. ASCA (Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics) had suggested the existence of a mid-mass black hole in M82. Scientists compared Chandra's new high-resolution images with optical radio and infrared maps to determine that a single, bright source was emitting most of the x-rays. The scientists continued to observe M82 over an eight-month period, noting that the intensity of the x-rays rose and fell every 600 seconds. Philip Kaaret of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics explained that this behavior was similar to black holes swallowing gas from a nearby star or cloud. Martin Ward of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom remarked that the findings opened "a whole new field of research.
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