Hubble gives scientists sharpest-ever look at a known galaxy containing enormous black hole

Scientists have been able to get the sharpest-ever look at a known galaxy that has a huge black hole, thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope. Officials said on Thursday that the enormous black hole present in the galaxy is known as NGC 4889, one of many in the Coma Cluster.

The US space agency NASA said that every galaxy has a supermassive black hole having masses over 1 million suns combined at the center. The black holes were believed to have been formed at the same time as the galaxy they are present in.

Though NGC 4889's black hole are 130 billion kilometers in diameter, it can’t be seen in a photograph. According to NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), black holes are invisible because light can't leave their gravitational pull.

However, scientists succeeded in measuring NGC 4889's black hole with the help of the velocity of the stars surrounding it and discovered it to be among the biggest known black holes.

A statement issued by NASA and ESA read that while the black hole used to ‘feast’ on stars and gas, it was dormant for billions of years and have now become so peaceful that formation of starts is taking place from its left gas and they are orbiting without any disturbance around the black hole.

Roeland van der Marel, a WFIRST mission head at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said that obviously the black hole can be reactivated by a collision with another galaxy.

WFIRST (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope) is the new astrophysics mission of NASA with the Space Telescope Science Institute for studying huge parts of the sky to get information about planets beyond our solar system.