British Astronomers have uncovered five Supermassive black holes that were previously hidden by clouds of dust and gas. The discovery has suggested that millions more could be similarly undetected.

What is a Supermassive Black Hole?

• A supermassive black hole is a cosmic mass at the centre of most large galaxies with a gravitational pull nothing can escape – not even light.
• High energy X-rays emitted from around the newly identified black holes revealed their presence at the centre of five galaxies.

They were detected by NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) orbiting observatory which was launched in 2012. The space telescope is designed to pick up extremely high energy X-rays from distant objects.

The Royal Astronomical Society says the five holes are much brighter and busier than first thought and “rapidly feasted on surrounding material and emitted large amounts of radiation”.