A black hole is a place where the theory of gravity breaks down, making detailed observations possible that could lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of physics. Our study of these galactic monsters can be improved with better telescopes, instruments, and artificial intelligence.

These are regions in space that are so gravitationally intense that even light cannot escape their pull. Stars burn out and shrink into relatively small husks once they burn out, concentrating all their mass in a very small area. Think of our Sun, with its diameter of 1.4 million kilometers (87,000 miles), like a black hole the size of a small city of just six kilometers across.

Researchers who discovered an invisible object in the Milky Way's heart are sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics 2020. The black hole in question is a supermassive black hole, which has a mass that is millions of times that of the sun.

Black holes are gravitational monsters of the universe. Professor Phillip Best, an astrophysicist at The University of Edinburgh, says black holes at the centers of galaxies can be millions to billions of times bigger than our Sun.

A radio telescope, such as Europe's LOFAR, can detect them on Earth, as it has detectors in the UK, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Poland. Duncan uses LOFAR observations to identify massive black holes as part of his HIZRAD project. This project aims to find the very first black hole in the universe, as well as the most extreme ones.

LOFAR can locate black holes that are obscured. The data from LOFAR and telescope surveys have been combined by Duncan using artificial intelligence techniques to identify objects of interest. Instruments that can assist in this process will be available soon.

Supermassive black holes exist from as early as the first five to ten percent of the history of the universe, according to radio signals. The research supervisor, Best, explained that these are billions of solar masses.

The earliest known form of matter is a cloud of primordial matter that expanded after the Big Bang. Cosmic background radiation suggests clumps of matter eventually formed stars. "How a black hole can grow to the size of a billion solar masses is not completely understood," said Best. I ntermediate black holes

In addition to the studies of SMBHs, Dr. Peter Jonker is intrigued by the formation of black holes of intermediate scales at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. With the image project, he is researching whether intermediate black holes exist.

In a very short period, how have we got billions of times the mass of the sun out of a homogenous soup of material?” said Jonker. Sun-like stars (called white dwarfs) might be consumed by black holes of supermassive size in their entirety, but an IMBH should be powerful enough to shred them instead, emitting a flash of energy.

Jonker said that when a compact star is ripped apart, it can only be ripped by intermediate-mass black holes. “Supermassive black holes devour them whole." There is strong evidence that intermediate black holes exist, but proof has not yet been found. To discern an intermediate black hole, he is looking for flashes of intense X-ray energy.

"We haven't seen one of these in our Milky Way yet since it happens once in 10,000 years per galaxy," said Jonker.JONKER will also observe the predicted outcome of two black holes spinning into one, merging, and emitting gravitational waves that bump nearby stars. However, powerful telescopes based in space are required to detect these stars being moved.

Gaia's 2013 launch can provide some help, but a planned mission named Euclid could provide higher resolution images that could help Jonker prove IMBHs exist. In place of a Russian rocket, the satellite will now be launched on a European Ariane 6 rocket with a slight delay.

Nevertheless, a small satellite - called the Chinese Einstein Probe - will be launched in 2023 to look for flashes of X-ray emission that could indicate intermediate black holes. Dr. Duncan in Edinburgh relates his search for intermediate black holes to the search for intermediate black holes. We may be able to figure out where the supermassive ones came from with its help, he said.

Physicists currently describe the universe using quantum theory and Einstein's equations. This cannot be the final word, however, as they are not compatible. Observing a black hole closely enough, Jonker predicted, "we will see deviations from gravity's theory as well as important advances in our understanding of physics."