An intermediate-mass black hole detected with XMM-Newton

An illustration of the variable hyper-luminous X-ray source, 2XMM J011028.1-460421, also known as HLX-1 (depicted here as the blue star to the upper left-hand-side of the galactic bulge). HLX-1, located on the outskirts of the spiral galaxy ESO 243-49, is the strongest candidate to date for an intermediate-mass black hole. It was discovered in the 2XMM Serendipitous Source Catalogue. Copyright: Heidi Sagerud