Oversized black hole may be from neighboring galaxy

Science News : The black holes at the center of most galaxies usually make up only one-tenth of a percent of the galaxy’s mass. But a black hole of roughly 17 billion solar masses accounts for 14% of galaxy NGC 1277 ‘s mass. That finding led Erin Bonning of Quest University Canada in Squamish, British Columbia, and Gregory Shields of the University of Texas at Austin to examine the galaxy and its neighbors in the Perseus cluster . Their study revealed that a giant galaxy in Perseus, NGC 1275 , is more likely to be able to support a black hole the size of NGC 1277’s. Bonning and Shields created computer simulations that they say show that NGC 1275 could have formed from the collision of two smaller galaxies, resulting in the ejection of one of the two black holes, which then was grabbed by NGC 1277. If that is the case, then it would be the first evidence of a nomadic supermassive black hole. However, because the theory requires the occurrence of several rare events, even Shields says that he isn’t wholly convinced. Bonning and Shields hope to continue performing computer simulations to better determine the likelihood of their proposal.