Supermassive Black Hole Discovered in a Tiny Galaxy

A supermassive black hole (SBH) was discovered by Scientist at the center of a tiny galaxy, based on a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The galaxy, named Fornax UCDs belongs to a recent discovery rare and unusual class of stellar systems called ultracompact dwarfs (UCDs), which are populated by older stars.

The UCDs are larger, brighter and more massive than the biggest globular clusters large groups of ancient stars that are closely packed together somewhere in the Milky Way in form of spherical. According to Steffen Mieske, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) facility in the Chilean Atacama Desert, who was not involved in the research said: “the UCDs are significantly more compact than the typical dwarf galaxies of comparable luminosity”.

The mass of UCDs reaches up to several tens of millions of solar masses while the radius does not exceed three hundred light years. By collation, the radius of the Milky Way is about 50,000 light years and is thought to be hundreds of billions of times that of our Sun.

Despite Fornax’s status as a dwarf, the scientist from Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), Russia discovers that mass of the black hole at its center was equivalent to about 3.5 million suns which are roughly the same as the black hole that lies at the heart of our galaxy, called Sagittarius A*.

This black hole is the fourth ever to be discovered in a UCD and is corresponding to around 4 percent of the galaxy’s total mass. This ratio is significantly lower, around 0.3 percent – in “normal” galaxies.

The team used data collected by SINFONI - an infrared detecting equipment at one of the VLT’s 8-meter telescopes - to recognize the black hole. According to the researchers, the patterns in the data could only be described by the presence of a massive central black hole.

In the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses, supermassive black holes are the largest type of black hole in discovery.

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India to send people to space by 2022, as the fourth nation in the world to do so

K. Sivan, chairman ISRO announced today that the technologies that will help in sending Indian astronaut to space like human crew module and environment control and life support system have already been developed.

Before the actual launch by 2022, the Indian Space Research Organization will contain two unmanned missions and spacecraft will be fired using Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-III, The ISRO chairman said.

He made this remarks after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his Independence Day address that India will attempt a manned mission into space by 2022 on board ‘Gaganyaan’.

India would be the fourth nation to achieve that feat if this development was successful.

A former IAF pilot, Rakesh Sharma was the first Indian to travel to space He was a part of the Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-11 expedition, launched on April 2, 1984, as part of the Intercosmos program.

Two Indian –born citizens Sunita Williams and Kalpana Chawla are among the known names to have gone to space. Chawla was one of the seven crew members who perished in the space shuttle Columbia’s disaster when entering the earth atmosphere.

He announced that India will launch SAARC satellite in 2014, as a “gift” to its neighbors. The satellite, later rechristened South Asian satellite, was launched in May 2017.

Former ISRO chairman, K Radhakrishnan, under his leadership the Mangalyaan mission was launched in 2013, termed the announcement of Gaganyaan mission a “turning point” for ISRO.

The ISRO is known for its space program, focus on projects that matter to the day-day lives of people. But recently, it has launched missions like Chandrayaan-1 known as “Moon Mission” and Mangalyaan was known as “Mars Orbiter Mission” that has aroused tremendous interest among people.

The Chandrayaan-2 which will land a rover on the moon is said to be launched next year.

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