• Discovery was made by the scientists from Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), autonomous institute under Department of Science and Technology (DST). 
• The 3.6m DOT (commissioned in 2016) is the largest telescope for studying celestial objects at optical wavelengths in India. 
  • Located in Nainital and is maintained and operated by ARIES. 

About IMBH Detected

• Location:  About 4.3 million light-years away in a faint galaxy. 
• Finding: A gas cloud orbiting the black hole at a distance of around 2.25 billion kilometre with a velocity dispersion of 545 km per second was found. 
• Significance of the discovery: So far IMBH have remained evasive due to their faint nature and location in small galaxies. 
  • Unlike their larger counterparts, they generally do not generate bright emissions. 

About Black Holes

• About: Regions in space where an enormous amount of mass is packed into a tiny volume creating a gravitational pull so strong that not even light can escape. 
  • They neither emit  nor reflect light, making them invisible to telescopes.
  • They are created when giant stars collapse and are surrounded by a boundary called an Event Horizon. 
• Detection: Based on their impact on surroundings through
  • Accretion disks (ring of gas and dust surrounding black holes). 
  • Gravitational waves (ripples created when very massive objects accelerate through space), etc. 
• Significance of Studying Black Holes: Testing fundamental theories of Universe like the General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics, etc.