Supermassive Black Hole Found in Large Magellanic Cloud

A new study suggests the existence of a supermassive black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way. Researchers, led by Jesse Han of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, analyzed hypervelocity stars and their trajectories using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope. The study, appearing in The Astrophysical Journal, indicates that some of these stars were accelerated by a black hole in the LMC, estimated to be 600,000 times the mass of the Sun. This would be the closest supermassive black hole outside the Milky Way. Scientists are now actively searching for X-ray, radio, and visible-light signatures to confirm its presence.