Astronomers have discovered the most massive stellar black hole in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Data issued by the European Space Agency's Gaia Space Observatory revealed this stellar giant, because it causes an unusual “oscillatory” movement of the star accompanying it, which it orbits, according to the “space” website. Scitech Daily.
Verified using data from the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) and other ground-based telescopes, the black hole's mass was found to be an astonishing 33 times the mass of the Sun.
Massive stars collapse into black holes, and the ones found in the Milky Way are typically ten times more massive than the Sun.
This latest discovery of this celestial giant is remarkable because even Cygnus X-1, the second-largest known stellar black hole in our galaxy, has a mass of only 21 solar masses.
This black hole is remarkably close to Earth as well, and is located in the constellation Vulture and is only 2,000 light-years away from us, making it the second closest known black hole to Earth.
It was discovered by the Gaia Observatory and given the nickname Gaia BH3 for short.
“No one would have expected to find a high-mass black hole lurking nearby, and it has not yet been discovered,” says Pasquale Panozzo, member of the Gaia collaboration, and an astronomer from the Center National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at the Paris Observatory – PSL, France.
“This is the kind of discovery you make once in your research life.”
