INBOX ASTRONOMY
NASA’s Hubble Discovers First of Star Cluster’s Missing Black Holes
Release date: Monday, July 13, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Call it the case of the missing black holes.
While models suggest globular star cluster Omega Centauri should contain about 10,000 stellar-mass black holes, none have been detected yet.
Recently a team of astronomers located the first stellar-mass black hole in Omega Centauri as it is orbited by a lower-mass visible star. By tracking this star's motion on the sky using hundreds of images taken over 20 years by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and more recent images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, they were able to weigh the unseen companion and determine it is indeed a black hole. However, its long period and low mass were surprising for a black hole in this massive star cluster.
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