More Images: "Mini" Monster Black Hole Could Hold Clues to Giant's Growth
X-ray Images & Illustrations of Mrk 462
(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Dartmouth Coll./J. Parker & R. Hickox; Optical/IR: Pan-STARRS)
Chandra has detected X-rays from the dwarf galaxy Mrk 462, which reveals the presence of a growing supermassive black hole. This black hole contains about 200,000 times the mass of the Sun and provides information to astronomers about how some of the earliest black holes in the Universe may have formed and grown billions of years ago. The optical image is from the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii, with several galaxies from the HCG068 galaxy group on the left-hand side and the much smaller Mrk 462 to the lower right. Astronomers will continue to try to determine the percentage of dwarf galaxies that have supermassive black holes.
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(January 10, 2022)