NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a galaxy with a supermassive black hole in it looking straight at Earth. The location of the galaxy has enabled the scientists to directly monitor “the life” of the black hole in its center, Hubble’s official website wrote.
Astronomers cannot always observe black holes directly and assume its presence from the objects moving around them.
They are usually surrounded by clouds of gas and dust, which interfere the energetic X-rays the black holes emit into space.
As a result, similar galaxies can look quite different if we look at them from various angles. Scientists are actively looking for galaxies, where gas clouds are located in a way that allows us to see black holes and their immediate surroundings.
The galaxy, named 2XMM J143450.5+033843, is one of these galaxies located about 400 million light-years away from Earth. The core of the galaxy possesses a supermassive black hole that is emitting radiation and energetic X-rays out into the universe.Observing the galaxy, scientists hope, will help us understand whether all supermassive black holes behave the same way and what their impact is on the evolution and growth of galaxies.