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First Pluto is no longer a planet and now Omega Centauri is no longer a globular cluster...what will happen next!
Click here for full article. I bet Grant can see this system really well.
Black Hole Found in Omega Centauri
(April 2, 2008) -- Omega Centauri has been known to be an unusual globular cluster for a long time. A new result obtained by Hubble and the Gemini Observatory reveals that the globular cluster may have a rare intermediate-mass black hole hidden in its centre, implying that it is likely not a globular cluster at all, but a dwarf galaxy stripped of its outer stars.
Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky, is visible from Earth with the naked eye and is one of the favourite celestial objects for stargazers from the southern hemisphere. Although 17 000 light-years away, it located just above the plane of the Milky Way and appears almost as large as the full Moon when seen from a dark, rural area.
Images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys and data from the GMOS spectrograph on the Gemini South telescope in Chile show that Omega Centauri appears to harbour an elusive and rare intermediate-mass black hole in its centre.
"This result shows that there is a continuous range of masses for black holes - from supermassive, to intermediate-mass, to small stellar mass types", explained astronomer Eva Noyola of the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, leader of the team that made the discovery. |
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