Black Hole Found in The Milky Way

Researchers from Keio University in Japan found an intermediate sized black hole inside a cloud of gas near the heart of our galaxy. The black hole is 100,000 times the size of our sun and is about 200 light years away from its counterpart Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way.

The researchers, who made the discovery at the ALMA lab in Chile, say that this is the first black hole in the Milky Way confirmed to be intermediate size. Scientists believe that this may be the middle step in the creation of the supermassive black holes that will sit in the center of most galaxies.

The most common theory on how supermassive black holes are formed is that larger black holes assimilate smaller ones and become more massive. This black hole may be in the middle of that growth process and could give insight into how smaller black holes develop into large ones like Sagittarius A*.

As for how the black hole got there, some scientists have proposed that this black hole may have been the heart of a dwarf galaxy that was assimilated during the rapid growth of the Milky Way billions of years ago. Inevitably, this new black hole will someday sink into Sagittarius A*, making our own supermassive black hole just a little bit larger.