Astronomers Find Black Hole In Odd Place

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British astronomers said they found a small black hole where it shouldn't be -- tucked in the middle of a densely packed star cluster. The black hole, estimated to be about 10 times more massive than the Sun, was found inside a globular cluster in a galaxy about 50 million light-years from Earth, Space.com said. A black hole is an object with such a concentrated mass that nothing escapes its strong gravitational pull from within a certain distance. The discovery surprised the astronomers, who said there are some theories that gravitational interactions among black holes inside a cluster would eject most or all of the black holes from the cluster. The fact that this black hole resisted getting kicked out suggested it's paired with a star and not another black hole, astronomers said. "If you look at the numerical simulations that say it's hard to keep black holes in clusters, what they generally say is that the ejection happens because of binary black holes," said study leader Thomas Maccarone, an astronomer at the University of Southampton in Britain. Maccarone said there may be another explanation: Many black holes merge to become so massive that ejection would be difficult. The discovery was outlined in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.