Hubble Space Telescope Finds Closest Massive Black Hole to Earth – Cosmic Clue Frozen in Time

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the closest massive black hole ever discovered: a cosmic giant "frozen in time."

As an example of an elusive "intermediate-mass black hole," the object could serve as a missing link in understanding the connection between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. The black hole appears to have a mass of about 8,200 suns, making it significantly more massive than stellar-mass black holes, which have masses between 5 and 100 times that of the sun, and much less massive than the aptly named supermassive black holes, which have masses millions to billions of times ...