Hubble image archive
Artist's Concept of Giant Black Hole in Center of Ultracompact Galaxy
This is an illustration of a supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 21 million suns, located in the middle of the ultradense galaxy M60-UCD1. The dwarf galaxy is so dense that millions of stars fill the sky as seen by an imaginary visitor. Because no light can escape from t...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2014
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2014-41-3423-image
This is an illustration of a supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 21 million suns, located in the middle of the ultradense galaxy M60-UCD1. The dwarf galaxy is so dense that millions of stars fill the sky as seen by an imaginary visitor. Because no light can escape from the black hole, it appears simply in silhouette against the starry background. The black hole's intense gravitational field warps the light of the background stars to form ring-like images just outside the dark edges of the black hole's event horizon. Combined observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and Gemini North telescope determined the presence of the black hole inside such a small and dense galaxy.
Credits
Illustration Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Coe and G. Bacon (STScI)More Images From This Period
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
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