> Science Astronomers have discovered a rare type of black hole tucked in a star cluster approximately 40,000 light-years away. Officially designated NGC 6099 HLX-1, this black hole was found after NASA's Hubble and Chandra X-ray telescopes detected bright X-rays emerging from the outskirts of the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 6099. A quick midnight snack @NASAHubble and @ChandraXray caught a black hole having a feast about 450 million light-years away. Data points to it being an intermediate-mass black hole, which are harder to spot than supermassive black holes. https://t.co/2Ekenvgd3d pic.twitter.com/UshMih3SJW — NASA (@NASA) July 29, 2025 According to NASA, this monster object belongs to the class of intermediate mass black holes (IMBH) which are harder to find than supermassive black holes because they don't gobble as much gas and stars as the supermassive ones, which would emit powerful radiation. Astronomers estimate that this black hole weighs between a few hundred to a few 1,00,000 times the mass of our Sun. The purple blob represents the X-ray emission from the black hole in the galaxy NGC 6099's star cluster. Image: NASA Thanks to data from the two telescopes, scientists have caught a black hole snacking on a star and radiation is pouring out of the scene due to a phenomenon called the 'tidal disruption event.' In the study published in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers revealed that X-ray emission coming from NGC 6099 HLX-1 has a temperature of three million degrees and the stars next to it are likely offering it a lot to feast on. NASA says the black hole reached maximum brightness in 2012 and then continued declining to 2023.