Artist’s impression of the new source HLX-1 (represented by the light blue object to the top left of the galactic bulge) in the periphery of the edge-on spiral galaxy ESO 243-49. This is the first strong evidence for the existence of intermediate mass black holes.

A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing including light can escape its pull. It has one way surface called an event horizon into which object can fall but out of which nothing can come. It is called black because it absorbs all the light that hits it reflecting nothing. Despite its invisible interior, it can reveal its presence through interaction with other matter. It can be inferred by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit a region in space which looks empty. One can see gas falling into a relatively small black hole from a companion star. This gas spirals inward, heating up to very high temperature and emitting large amounts of radiation that can be detected from earthbound and earth-orbiting telescopes.

Black hole interesting facts:
When the star ten times more massive than our own Sun, explodes (Supernova) it leaves behind the strangest phenomenon in the Universe. The Black Hole. After explosion what is left behind is heavy core of subatomic particles, a Neutron Star. It can be very small, but with enormous density. Scientists calculated that approximately one teaspoon of Neutron Star would weight around billions of tons. The gravitational pressure of this highly dense object is so large that it can bend fabric of time and space. This theory is based on Einstein’s proposition that space and time are woven together in a flexible fabric. Massive objects like Sun warp the fabric of space and time and pull smaller objects like Earth. Very large Neutron Star can warp time and space fabric so much that it could create a hole where gravity is so strong that not even light could escape. Black Holes are pulling everything around them closer to the center of the hole. In some sense black holes are creators of the galaxies since they are pulling planets and stars towards the spiral center. Each galaxy has a Black Hole and occasionally galaxies collide together because of the gravitational pull from the larger black holes. It is expected that in 5 billion years Andromeda galaxy will collide with our Milky Way galaxy.

News:
“Astronomers see a new class of black hole”
Scientists say X-ray data collected by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton spacecraft show evidence of a new type of black hole in a galaxy about 290 million light years from Earth and more than 500 times the mass of the sun. Astronomer Sean Farrell explains what the discovery might tell us about galaxy evolution. The new discovery is the first solid evidence of a new class of medium-sized black holes.