In 1864, Herschel’s son, John Frederick William Herschel, published the General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars. During its active period, astronomers would have classified NGC 4889 as a quasar, and the disk around the supermassive black hole would have emitted up to a thousand times the energy output of the Milky Way. During its active period, astronomers would have classified NGC 4889 as a quasar, and the disk around the supermassive black hole would have radiated up to a thousand times the energy output of the Milky Way. The black hole at the centre of NGC 4889 is one of the largest ever discovered, but it is currently dormant.
During its active period, astronomers would have classified NGC 4889 as a quasar, and the disk around the supermassive black hole would have emitted up to a thousand times the energy output of the Milky Way. The ionised medium detected around the black hole suggests that NGC 4889 may have been a quasar in the past. He recorded the objects his father had catalogued, including the one later named NGC 4889, as well as others he found that his father had somehow overlooked.
Is NGC 1277 a black hole?
The aim of the study is to better understand how black holes and galaxies form and coalesce – a process that is not yet well understood. After using stellar dynamics and luminosity models to estimate the mass of the black hole, they arrived at a mass of 4.9×109 M☉, similar to the estimate from Emsellem’s follow-up study, which estimated a mass between 2-5 billion solar masses. NGC 1277 was first documented on 4 December 1875 by Lawrence Parsons (4th Earl of Rosse), who observed it from Ireland. It is characterised by an exceptionally massive supermassive black hole at its centre, one of the largest black holes ever found.
How old is NGC 4889?
At the centre of the galaxy is a supermassive black hole, which heats up the medium inside the cluster through the friction of infalling gas and dust. Of course, the announcement about the new photos of the galaxy NGC 4889 is quick to point out that the images do not accurately represent the appearance of the supermassive black hole. For this particular black hole in the galaxy NGC 4889, scientists used instruments from the Keck II Observatory and the Gemini North Telescope to measure the speed of stars moving around the centre of the galaxy. NGC 4889 lies at the centre of Component A of the Coma Cluster, a huge cluster of 2,000 galaxies that it shares with NGC 4874, although NGC 4889 is sometimes referred to as the centre of the cluster and has also been given the designation A1656-BCG.
What is the largest black hole in the universe?
The enormous mass of TON 618 led scientists to speculate whether there are even larger black holes and whether there is an upper limit to their size. Researchers in Italy have found a testable explanation for how supermassive black holes could grow so fast in the early days of the universe. The currently largest known black hole, which powers the quasar TON 618, has a mass of 66 billion solar masses. Distant quasars, some of the brightest objects in the night sky, are actually ancient supermassive black holes that have set fire to the cores of dying galaxies.
Even more puzzling, supermassive black holes existed when the universe was still in its relative infancy.
