Instead, the team found that conditions inside a common globular cluster are not the conditions needed to make a black hole grow. There is only one other strong contender for a black-hole laced globular cluster, a body known as G1, though some scientists believe G1 is actually the remains of a larger galaxy that lost most of its real estate. In terms of understanding the evolution of black holes, G1 may turn out to be an important player. Dwarf galaxies, which may be a more accurate classification for G1, are the next logical place to look for mid-size black holes, but scientists are a bit stumped about how to find them. Since they emit no light of their own, black holes can only be detected by studying what they are doing to nearby stars and matter and that makes for slim pickings in the relative spaciousness of dwarf galaxies. "In the centers of dwarf galaxies, there is not a lot of stuff to test, so it's hard to tell," said Daniel Stern, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's always hard to prove that something is nowhere in the universe." Zepf's research appears in this week's Astrophysical Journal. Related Links: |
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