Dec 8 - New Black Hole Heft Record

December 8 New Black Hole Heft Record by:

This galaxy cluster - Abell 85 - consists of more than 500 individual galaxies. The bright one in the center is called Holm 15A. Astronomers peered into its heart to measure the mass of a black hole 40 billion times more massive than our sun. Image via Matthias Kluge/Wendelstein Observatory/Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.

Hefty black hole holds new record for most mass Astronomers have set a new record for finding the most massive black hole in the universe. They found it not because it’s doing something exotic or noticeable. On the contrary, they noticed this black hole because it caused the center of its galaxy to be peculiarly fainter than it would be otherwise, given the galaxy’s huge mass of stars. Holmberg 15A is a supergiant elliptical galaxy some 700 million light-years from Earth. It's the central galaxy of the Abell 85 galaxy cluster. In contrast to our Milky Way’s central black hole of about 4 million solar masses, the new record-holding central black hole in the galaxy Holm 15A is 40 billion times more massive than our sun. Read more.  Interstellar object closest to the sun today The 2nd-known interstellar object - identified as a comet and labeled 2I/Borisov - reaches its perihelion, or closest point to the sun, today. Comets tend to be most active when they're nearest the sun. Although this isn't a particularly close approach for a comet, it's the closest this interstellar comet will come to our sun. And so the eyes of the world are upon it. Read more. New biomass map takes stock of Earth's carbon The 1st of a series of global maps aimed at quantifying change in carbon stored as biomass across the world’s forests and shrublands was released by ESA on Friday, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Spain. Read more.

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Interstellar object closest to the sun today View larger. | 2I/Borisov's orbit. The "2I" stands for "2nd interstellar." In other words, this is only the 2nd object from a distant solar system known to have swept past our sun. Its perihelion - or closest point to the sun - is just outside the orbit of Mars. As it sweeps near the sun, 2I/Borisov's orbit will be bent by the sun’s gravity, but the sun won't capture it. It'll continue to brighten - making its closest approach to Earth on December 28 - as it flees outward. Image via Wikimedia Commons user Drbogdan/NASA. Read more.

Hubble spots galaxy's dramatic details Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy NGC 5468 - just over 130 million light-years away - showing the galaxy's loose, open spiral pattern in beautiful detail. Read more.  Submit your photo to EarthSky here! Did a friend forward EarthSkyNews to you? Click here to get your own subscription!

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