It has just been revealed that experts discovered the largest black hole in the Milky Way. Check out the latest reports about this below.
Largest black hole in the Milky Way
According to a study published on Tuesday, astronomers have discovered the largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way.
The black hole, named Gaia BH3, has a mass 33 times greater than that of the Sun. It was discovered “by chance” from data collected by the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission.
Pasquale Panuzzo, an astronomer from the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Observatoire de Paris, revealed this information to AFP.
Gaia is a space observatory that aims to map the Milky Way galaxy. Recently, it discovered BH3, which is located 2,000 light years away from Earth in the Aquila constellation.
Using Gaia’s telescope, astronomers were able to determine the precise position of BH3 and characterize its orbit.
They were also able to measure the mass of its invisible companion, which is 33 times greater than that of the Sun.
Further observations from on-the-ground telescopes confirmed that BH3 is a black hole with a mass far greater than the stellar black holes already known to exist in the Milky Way.
“No one was expecting to find a high-mass black hole lurking nearby, undetected so far. This is the kind of discovery you make once in your research life,” Panuzzo said in a press release.
The discovery of the stellar black hole was made when scientists observed a “wobbling” motion on its orbiting companion star.
“We could see a star a little smaller than the Sun (around 75 percent of its mass) and brighter, that revolved around an invisible companion,” Panuzzo said.
Stellar black holes are formed when massive stars collapse at the end of their lives. They are relatively smaller than supermassive black holes, whose origins are still unknown.
These colossal black holes have been discovered in faraway galaxies through the detection of gravitational waves.