Astronomers have found a black hole closest to Earth
US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) discovered the closest known black hole to Earth, which is only 1,000 light-years distant from us.
It is so small by the standards of the Universe that its habitat system can be seen with the naked eye in the night sky of the southern hemisphere.
It is impossible to see a black hole in the optical range, because each of you knows a story about light passing the event horizon and blah blah blah. However, gluttonous black holes, feeding on the surrounding matter, heat it up to millions of degrees, because of which there are bright x-ray flashes that can be fixed.
This black hole did not reveal its location, being amazingly calm.
Astronomers took a different path and began to regularly monitor the HR 6819 system, using the power of the La Silla Observatory to track the gravitational effects that a black hole could generate.
The HR 6819 system was chosen because one of the stars of the binary system revolved around something invisible every 40 earth days.
Having studied the trajectory, scientists came to the conclusion that the star is in the orbit of a massive black hole.
“An invisible object whose mass is at least 4 times the mass of the Sun can only be a black hole,” said Thomas Rivinius, lead author of the study and astronomer ESO.
Unusual discovery
From the handful of black holes that we managed to find in our Galaxy, they all give out their location, emitting bright flashes of X-rays, devouring matter.
The black hole from the HR 6819 system was found only thanks to the observation of a team of specialists flavored with luck.
This suggests that there may be more such hidden black holes. A lot more.
“There may be hundreds of millions of black holes in the Milky Way, but we know of the existence of only a few. This discovery will expand the scope of the search and find new gravitational monsters,” concluded Thomas Rivinius.
Imagine if an equally calm black hole lives on the outskirts of the solar system, affecting the orbits of the Kuiper belt objects … The gravitational anomaly near us is a confirmed fact, but what creates it?
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