Kepler Spots Supermassive Black Hole Located 100 Million Light-Years Away (VIDEO)

Scientists are getting a closer look at a supermassive black hole about 100 million light-years away. At the center of a galaxy known as KA 1858 is a black hole that now researchers have examined a bit more closely.

The new findings are all thanks to NASA's Kepler satellite. This satellite's main mission was once to hunt for Earth-like planets in our own galaxy. In this latest study, though, researchers combined data from the Kepler mission with ground-based data to observe black hole characteristics.

"It was a long project that involved lots of different observers, some of them around the world," said Michael Joner, co-author of the new study, in a news release. "Using measurements that were done at BYU, we were able to determine that the mass of the central black hole for this galaxy was about eight million times the mass of the sun-that's a really, really massive object."

In order to measure the black hole, the researchers used a method known as reverberation mapping. This technique involves observing the light that is emitted as material spirals toward the black hole. At different distances from the center, the light interacts with nearby gases, which then re-emit that light. These groups of light reach the ground-based telescope within a few days of each other. By analyzing this time difference and by measuring how fast the material is moving around the center of the galaxy, the scientists determined the mass of the central black hole.

"After lots of collaboration, we were both learning amazing things and coming up with new ideas and possibilities," said Carla Carroll, one of the researchers. "The best part of this project for me was learning about active galactic nuclei and supermassive black holes on a level I never could have in either undergraduate or graduate classroom settings."

The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Want to learn more? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.

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