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Black hole found in enigmatic Omega Centauri

07 August, 2008 20:42

"This is the second black hole that we find in a globular cluster, so this is a very nice reassuring fact. But also, we know that there are seeds required to grow supermassive black holes from scratch. And if we find many of these, then it will be a nice source for the seeds to grow supermassive black holes."

"One implication of this discovery is that it is very likely that Omega Centauri is not a globular cluster at all, but a dwarf galaxy stripped of its outer stars and dark matter, as some scientists have suspected for a few years. More than two thousand years after Omega Centauri was wrongly classified as a star, it’s true nature is finally coming to light. But I wonder, does Omega Centauri have more surprises in store for us? This is Dr. J signing off for the Hubblecast. Once again nature has surprised us beyond our wildest imagination …"

-- Huble Information Centre

Here is a Google Earth KML file for this location: Omega Centauri.kml

"For astronomers, Omega Centauri has been an outcast amongst globular clusters for a long time. A new result obtained by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Observatory provides a surprising explanation for Omega Centauri’s peculiarities."

Credit:

ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen), R. Gendler

Narration:
Dr. Robert Fosbury

Design:
Martin Kornmesser

Web Technical Support:
Lars Holm Nielsen
Raquel Yumi Shida

Cinematographer:
Peter Rixner (www.perix.de)

Script:
Lars Lindberg Christensen, Raquel Yumi Shida

Director:
Lars Lindberg Christensen

--http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/html/heic0809a.html 

[Source for a PDF version of this transcript].


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