Astronomers have discovered a missing black hole in the universe, leaving them disappointed. Here’s why this finding has stirred up emotions. (Photo)

A new study has delivered disappointing news for astronomers who believed they had discovered an elusive intermediate-mass black hole. It turns out that this is actually a different object, or rather, multiple black holes. The research has been published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, as reported by Live Science.

Intermediate-mass black holes are considered a missing link in the evolution of black holes, which astronomers have yet to successfully detect. Although it is believed that such black holes should be quite common in the Universe.

Intermediate-mass black holes lie between stellar-mass black holes (which are 100 to 1000 times the mass of the Sun) and supermassive black holes (which are millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun). It is thought that the mergers of intermediate-mass black holes have contributed to the formation of supermassive black holes at the centers of most galaxies.

Detecting intermediate-mass black holes is incredibly challenging, and they remain elusive objects. The key issue is that black holes can only be detected when they are surrounded by a cloud of bright, hot matter that the black hole is consuming. It is believed that intermediate-mass black holes do not have such a cloud around them, making them visible only through their gravitational influence on nearby stars.

Last year, astronomers presented a study suggesting that the gravity of an intermediate-mass black hole at the center of the dense star cluster Omega Centauri in the Milky Way affects the unusually high speed of the stars. In other words, the stars are moving much faster than expected. The researchers proposed that an intermediate-mass black hole, approximately 8000 times the mass of the Sun, was located at the center of the star cluster.

However, the authors of the new study reanalyzed the Omega Centauri star cluster and concluded that the speed of the stars is actually influenced by a group of stellar-mass black holes. This new research supports the theory that such black holes are actively growing in dense star clusters.

At the same time, scientists believe that the new data suggest that an elusive black hole, roughly 6000 times the mass of the Sun, may be located near the group of stellar-mass black holes. However, there is currently no definitive evidence to confirm this.

Regarding the Omega Centauri star cluster, it is thought to be a remnant of a dwarf galaxy that was consumed by the Milky Way billions of years ago.