The “monster” behavior has exposed a stellar-mass black hole to the telescope, closer to us than any other known black hole.
According to Science Alert, it is a stellar-mass black hole in the Gaia binary system DR3 4373465352415301632, with a companion star slightly smaller than the Sun. They are located about 1,550 light-years from Earth, making them the closest black hole humanity has ever captured.
“Calculations show that stellar-mass black holes must be very abundant, with about 100 million of them in the Milky Way,” said Professor Sukanya. Chakrabarti from the University of Alabama – USA, is a member of the research team.
The bright spot in the center of the image is the Gaia DR3 couple 4373465352415301632, where the visible star hides a giant friend trying to entice it – (Image: Sloan Digital Sky Survey / Chakrabarti)
However, he added that these black holes are difficult to observe. Black holes themselves are inherently elusive because they have swallowed up all that light can help us see. However, with luck, humanity sometimes finds a black hole thanks to the light from the jet stream that they emit while swallowing matter, or through its impact on another object.
In the case of this nearest shadow monster, it is trying to entice a companion, a behavior commonly seen in a black hole-stellar pairing.For this study, Professor Chakrabarti’s team analyzed data from nearly 200,000 stars collected by the European Space Agency (ESA) Gaia sky-mapping satellite.They sorted out objects that showed signs of a massive companion, the mass of a star pulling the object itself, but could not see the companion.
These objects were re-examined by another series of ground-based telescopes, from which the pair were discovered.The black hole in the Gaia DR3 pair 4373465352415301632, which is about 11.9 times the mass of the Sun, was once a massive star before running out of energy and collapsing through many steps, eventually becoming a black hole.
Its companion has a mass of just 0.91 times the Sun and is 7.1 years old.With orbits of up to 185 days, the two objects are quite far apart, so even if the small star is constantly “wobbled” by the black hole, there is a chance it will escape for a long time.v
