Where a Black Hole Roams

Where a Black Hole Roams



Black hole candidate XTE J1118+480 is known to roam the haloof our Milky Way Galaxy This exoticsystem - thought to be stellar mass black hole consumingmatter from a companion star - was discovered only last year as aflaring celestial x-ray source.Suggestively termed microquasar,recent radio and archival optical observations o itsmotion through the sky have now allowed it orbit to be calculated.Illustrated above, th black hole's present galactic location isindicated by the purple dot, with th Sun's position in yellow.A mere 6,000 light-years from the Sun now, XTE J1118+480's orbit istraced by the orange line, backtracked for some 230 million years intothe past based on models of the Galaxy.Astronomers note this black hole's orbit about the galactic center,looping high above and belo the Galaxy'splane of gas, dust,and stars,is similar to orbits of globula star clusters ancient denizens of our Galaxy.It seems likely tha XTE J1118+480 too has its origins in the earl history andhalo of the Milky Way.