This research has uncovered a missing population of black holes and helped scientists understand how they are behaving.įor about 40 years scientists have known about galaxies that look normal in optical light - with light from stars and gas but not the distinctive optical signatures of a quasar - but shine brightly in X-rays. While astronomers have already identified huge numbers of black holes over the years, many of these exotic objects remain elusive. They are in galaxies not previously identified to contain quasars, extremely bright objects containing rapidly growing supermassive black holes. From this, a team of astronomers was able to identify hundreds of black holes that had previously been hidden. They combined the X-ray information with optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, or SDSS. The result was made possible by using data from the Chandra Source Catalog, a public repository including hundreds of thousands of X-ray sources detected by the observatory over its first 15 years. While astronomers think that almost all large galaxies harbor giant black holes in their centers, only some of the black holes will be actively pulling in material that produces radiation and some will be obscured by dust and gas. The black holes in this new study are the supermassive variety that contain millions or even billions of times the mass of the Sun. This result helps give astronomers a more accurate census of black holes in the Universe. Hundreds of black holes previously hidden, or buried, have been found using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Tour: Astronomers Dig Out Buried Black Holes With NASA's Chandra
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