A supermassive black hole should always be shrouded by a doughnut-shaped
cloud of gas and dust. But in last week鈥檚 Astrophysical Journal Letters
(vol 486, p 91), German astronomers claim to have found a 鈥渘aked鈥� black
hole.
The shameless black hole sits in the centre of a galaxy 300 million light
years away. As nearby galactic debris tumbles towards the hole it heats up,
spilling ultraviolet light in all directions.
Normally this UV light would be soaked up in a torus of gas and dust. But
using the Hubble Space Telescope, Phillipe Crane and Jo毛l Vernet of the
European Southern Observatory in Garching have spotted some of the light shining
out into space. They conclude that the accretion disc is partly exposed.
Advertisement
鈥淚n theory, you expect to have a torus shielding the black hole,鈥� says
Vernet. 鈥淭here must be something missing.鈥�