Black Hole Makes a Bright “O”
Credit: Walter Jaffe/Leiden Observatory, Holland Ford/JHU/STScI, and NASA/h6>
A giant disk of cold gas, looking like a giant “O” in this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, may be fueling a possible black hole in the core of NGC 4261. Astronomers estimate this disk to be about 300 light-years across.
A black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light can escape. Black holes cannot be seen. But scientists have found many objects that could be black holes. Astronomers look for the affect these exotic objects have on the area of space around them. When surrounding gas and dust is sucked into a black hole by the force of gravity, the particles get hot. These particles heat up so quickly as they fall around the black hole that they emit X-rays. These X-rays can be seen from Earth with special telescopes.
Black holes form in places where a huge amount of matter gets crammed into a very small space. This happens when a large star collapses and shrinks to a tiny point at the end of its life. It may also happen in the centers of large galaxies like our own Milky Way.
NGC 4261 is one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster about 45 million light-years from Earth.
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