A supermassive black hole has been found after more than 20 years of research – and scientists are on edge of strange activity.
The black hole was found in a nearby galaxy, and scientists have said its discovery provides further support for Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.
A black hole is a part of space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape.
Researchers put together images from observations across planet Earth, eventually finding the moving particles.
Astrophysicist and study co-author Kazuhiro Hada from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan told Fox News: “After the success of black hole imaging in this galaxy with the Event Horizon Telescope, whether this black hole is spinning or not has been a central concern among scientists.
“Now anticipation has turned into certainty. This monster black hole is indeed spinning.”
The black hole is located a staggering 55 million light-years away in the Messier 87 galaxy.
Wystan Benbow, an astrophysicist for the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement: “The only two properties that astrophysical black holes possess are mass and spin, and spin is notoriously challenging to measure.
“This discovery gives us further, independent evidence that the black hole in M87 is spinning.”
“Proving that supermassive black holes spin would provide further evidence in support of Einstein’s theories of relativity. Independently confirming that they are spinning using a new technique places many important theories on much firmer footing.”
The black hole is 5.4 billion times larger than the sun.
The new “smoking gun evidence for the black hole spin” has helped scientists finally confirm its existence, Igor Chilingaryan, an astronomer at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said.
He added that the find “will also give us insight into how black holes and their host galaxies co-evolve and how our universe came to have the large-scale structure that it does today. In any case, this is an important milestone.”
