Hubble Discovers Black Holes in Unexpected Places

Medium-size black holes actually do exist, according to the latest findings from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, but scientists had to look in some unexpected places to find them.

The previously undiscovered black holes provide an important link that sheds light on the way black holes grow. Even more odd, these new black holes were found in the cores of glittering, "beehive" swarms of stars -- called globular star clusters -- that orbit our Milky Way and other galaxies.

The new findings promise a better understanding of how galaxies and globular clusters first formed billions of years ago. Globular star clusters contain the oldest stars in the universe. If globulars have black holes now, then globulars most likely had black holes when they originally formed. The new results indicate that the very sedate, elderly environments of globular clusters house these exotic objects, quite unlike the violent cores of some galaxies.

"These findings may be telling us something very deep about the formation of star clusters and black holes in the early universe," said Roeland Van Der Marel of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Black holes are even more common in the universe than previously thought."

For the complete press release on black holes findings, go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-release/releases/2002/h02-174.htm