NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory teamed as much as determine a brand new doable instance of a uncommon class of black holes, recognized by X-ray emission (in purple) on this picture launched on July 24, 2025. Known as NGC 6099 HLX-1, this shiny X-ray supply appears to reside in a compact star cluster in a large elliptical galaxy. These uncommon black holes are referred to as intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) and weigh between just a few hundred to some 100,000 occasions the mass of our Solar.
Learn more about IMBHs and what studying them can tell us about the universe.
Picture credit score: Science: NASA, ESA, CXC, Yi-Chi Chang (Nationwide Tsing Hua College); Picture Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)