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ASTRONOMERS DETECT MILKY WAY'S SECOND-LARGEST KNOWN BLACK HOLE

By Will Dunham
April 16, 20249:00 PM GMT+2Updated 4 days ago
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Item 1 of 2 An artist's impression shows the orbits of the most massive stellar
black hole in our galaxy, dubbed Gaia BH3, and a companion star, in this handout
image obtained by Reuters on April 16, 2024. European Southern Observatory/L.
Calcada/Handout via REUTERS
[1/2]An artist's impression shows the orbits of the most massive stellar black
hole in our galaxy, dubbed Gaia BH3, and a companion star, in this handout image
obtained by Reuters on April 16, 2024. European Southern Observatory/L.
Calcada/Handout via REUTERS Purchase Licensing RightsNew Tab, opens new tab
ChevronChevron
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - Astronomers have discovered a black hole with a
mass about 33 times greater than that of our sun, the biggest one known in the
Milky Way aside from the supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our
galaxy.
The newly identified black hole is located about 2,000 light-years from Earth -
relatively close in cosmic terms - in the constellation Aquila, and has a
companion star orbiting it, researchers said on Tuesday. A light year is the
distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
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Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects with gravity so strong that not
even light can escape, making it difficult to spot them. This one was identified
through observations made in the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, which is
creating a huge stellar census, because it caused a wobbling motion in its
companion star. Data from the European Southern Observatory's Chile-based Very
Large Telescope and other ground-based observatories were used to verify the
black hole's mass.
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"This black hole is not only very massive, it is also very peculiar in many
aspects. It is really something we never expected to see," said Pasquale
Panuzzo, a research engineer at the French research agency CNRS working at the
Observatoire de Paris and lead author of the study published in the journal
Astronomy & AstrophysicsNew Tab, opens new tab.
For instance, the black hole, called Gaia BH3, and its companion are traveling
within the galaxy in the opposite direction of how stars typically orbit in the
Milky Way.

Gaia BH3 probably formed after the death of a star that was more than 40 as
massive as the sun, the researchers said.
Black holes that result from the collapse of a single star are called stellar
black holes. Gaia BH3 is the largest-known stellar black hole, according to
astronomer and study co-author Tsevi Mazeh of the Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Stellar black holes are dwarfed in size by the supermassive black holes
inhabiting the center of most galaxies. One such black hole called Sagittarius
A*, or Sgr A*, is located at the heart of the Milky Way. It possesses 4 million
times the mass of our sun and is located about 26,000 light-years from Earth.
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Gaia BH3's progenitor star was composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium.
Stars in the early universe had such a chemical composition, known as low
metallicity. This star had formed relatively early in the universe's history -
perhaps 2 billion years after the Big Bang event.
When that star exploded at the end of its lifespan - called a supernova - it
blasted some material into space while the remnant violently collapsed to form a
black hole.

The discovery of Gaia BH3, according to Panuzzo, supports stellar evolution
models showing that massive stellar black holes can be produced only by a low
metallicity star like this one's progenitor star.
Gaia BH3's companion star, just as old as the other one was, is about 76% of the
mass of the sun and a bit colder, but around 10 times more luminous. It orbits
the black hole on an elliptical path at a distance varying between about 4.5
times the distance between Earth and the sun - a measure called an astronomical
unit (AU) - and 29 AU. By way of comparison, Jupiter orbits around five AU from
the sun and Neptune around 30 AU.
"The surprising result for me was the fact that the chemical composition of this
companion star does not show anything special, so it was not affected by the
supernova explosion of the black hole," Observatoire de Paris astronomer and
study co-author Elisabetta Caffau said.
Scientists are not sure just how big stellar black holes can be.
"The maximum mass for a stellar black hole is a matter of active scientific
debate," Panuzzo said.

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Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.New Tab, opens new tab

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