Has the Hubble Space Telescope detected any black holes?

Yes, but even before Hubble, there were many candidates known for black holes. Cygnus X-1 is perhaps the most famous, and earliest stellar-mass black hole. Since about the early 1970's astronomers have known that this binary system had an unseen companion at least 5 times the mass of the sun, and only a black hole could be this heavy and not emit any light. Also, to explain the quasar phenomenon which had ben discovered in 1964, some astronomers had invoked very massive black holes eating entire stars as the likely mechanism for producing the energy outputs. Although the Hubble has done little to study stella-sized black holes in our galaxy because most are so far away they cant be resolved, it has been a spectacular success in validating the existence of supermassive black holes. Here is a list of press releases in which supermassive black holes play a starring role:
  1. 2000...Black Holes Shed Light on Galaxy Formation
  2. 2000...Feasting Black Hole Blows Bubbles
  3. 2000...Lone Black Holes Discovered Adrift in the Galaxy
  4. 1998...Hubble Uncovers Dust Disk around Massive Black Hole
  5. 1998...Hubble Provides Multiple Views of How to Feed a Black Hole
  6. 1997...Hubble Finds a Bare Black Hole Pouring out Light
  7. 1997...Fireworks in a Black Hole Near the Core of a Seyfert Galaxy NGC 4151
  8. 1997...STIS Records a Black Hole's Signature
  9. 1997...Massive Black Holes Dwell in Most Galaxies
  10. 1995...Hubble Finds a New Black Hole
  11. 1994... Hubble Confirms Existence of Massive Black Hole at Heart of Active Galaxy
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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