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Faint radio signal from ancient star cluster could be rare ‘missing link’ black hole, astronomers report

Posted in cosmology

Astronomers have discovered a mysterious radio signal at the heart of an ancient, tightly packed ball of stars, and it may be coming from a long-hidden black hole.

The radio signal was picked up by the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) radio telescope as it created the most sensitive image of a globular cluster — a clump of ancient stars like these — ever taken. The ball of stars in question, named 47 Tucanae, is the second-brightest globular cluster in the sky over Earth and is located around 13,000 light-years from our planet.