The Missing Link: Where Are Medium-Size Black Holes?

Much remains uncertain about how black holes reach supermassive girth and influence the universe around them. As such, astronomers want to analyze intermediate-mass black holes of about 100 to 10,000 solar masses that they expect would serve as the middle stages between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes.

However, while astronomers have discovered a number of potential intermediate-mass black holes, the evidence remains inconclusive, said astrophysicists Tal Alexander at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel and former Member in the School of Natural Sciences, and Ben Bar-Or, current Member in the School.

Now these researchers suggest the dearth of these missing links may be due to the rate at which black holes may grow. They detailed their findings online June 19 in the journal Nature Astronomy.