Astronomy

While studying a nearby galaxy named M83, a team of Australian and MAericans found a small yet powerful black hole and named it MQ1. It’s the first black hole of its kind to be studied in this much detail. Astronomers have found other objects similar to MQ1 but they were not able to determine the size of the black hole. Previously, it was thought that MQ1 was a bigger black hole because of its power but they found out that it was a normal small black hole. It’s categorized as a microquazar. “Roberto Soria from Curtin University in Australia, who led the team investigating MQ1, said it was important to understand how stars were formed, how they evolved, and how they died within a spiral shaped galaxy like M83.”

 

There is evidence that several black holes like MQ1 were common when the universe first started. Astronomers believe that these type of powerful black holes played an essential role in the early stages of the evolution of the galaxy. The most powerful microquasar in our galaxy is 10 times weaker than MQ1. By studying microquasars, astronomers get to see how ast quasars grew and how much energy black holes provided to the environment. The MQ1 is 62 miles wide but the structure is much bigger than our solar system.

Sources:
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/02/new-fast-and-furious-black-hole-found
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Black_Hole_Milkyway.jpg