Astronomy talk about "Intermediate Mass Black Holes: The missing link" /media/reviews/photos/thumbnail/256x256s/d9/79/57/5882-McClean20sunset20-20by20Anthony20Koeslag20-20201220032012-1-64-1434551571.jpg New

The elusive category of Black Holes - Intermediate Mass Black Holes

Once again on Saturday, June 27 at 20h00, SA Astronomical Observatory will host a free public lecture presented by Dr. Liz Bartlett (UCT) with the title "Intermediate Mass Black Holes: The missing link".

Summary of the talk

Currently, the known population of black holes fall into two categories: stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes. The former are the result of the gravitational collapse of the most massive stars at the end of their lives and have masses approximately between 5 and 20 times that of the Sun. Supermassive Black Holes are found at the centres of most, if not all large galaxies and have masses exceeding 100,000 times that of the Sun. A third group of Black Holes has been hypothesised, but not yet conclusively observed – intermediate mass black holes. As the name suggests, these are proposed to have masses greater than those of stellar mass Black Holes but significantly less than Supermassive Black Holes, between 100 and 1000 solar masses. In this talk, Dr. Bartlett will discuss the evidence for and against the existence of this illusive category of black holes.