The Milky Way has a big newfound black hole, and it lurks close to Earth! This sleeping giant was discovered with the European space telescope Gaia, which tracks the motion of billions of stars in our galaxy.Stellar-mass black holes are created when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses. The new discovery is a landmark, representing the first time that a big black hole with such an origin has been found close to Earth.The stellar-mass black hole, designated Gaia-BH3, is 33 times more massive than our sun. The previous most massive black hole of this class found in the Milky Way was a black hole in an X-ray binary in the Cygnus constellation (Cyg X-1), whose mass is estimated to be around 20 times that of the sun. The average stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way is about 10 times heftier than the sun.Gaia-BH3 is located just 2,000 light years from Earth, making it the second-closest black hole to our planet ever discovered. The closest black hole to Earth is Gaia-BH1 (also discovered by Gaia), which is 1,560 light-years away. Gaia-BH1 has a mass around 9.6 times that of the sun, making it considerably smaller than this newly discovered black hole.Related: New view of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way hints at an exciting hidden feature (image)”Finding Gaia BH3 is like the moment in the film ‘The Matrix’ where Neo starts to ‘see’ the matrix,” George Seabrook, a scientist at Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London and a member of Gaia’s Black Hole Task Force, said in a statement sent to Space.com. “In our case, ‘the matrix’ is our galaxy’s population of dormant stellar black holes, which were hidden from us before Gaia detected them.”Seabroke added that Gaia BH3 is an important clue to this population, because it is the most massive stellar black hole found in our galaxy.Of course, Gaia-BH3 is a small fry compared to the supermassive black hole that dominates the heart of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), which has a mass 4.2 million times that of the sun. Supermassive black holes like Sgr A* aren’t created by the deaths of mass …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe Milky Way has a big newfound black hole, and it lurks close to Earth! This sleeping giant was discovered with the European space telescope Gaia, which tracks the motion of billions of stars in our galaxy.Stellar-mass black holes are created when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses. The new discovery is a landmark, representing the first time that a big black hole with such an origin has been found close to Earth.The stellar-mass black hole, designated Gaia-BH3, is 33 times more massive than our sun. The previous most massive black hole of this class found in the Milky Way was a black hole in an X-ray binary in the Cygnus constellation (Cyg X-1), whose mass is estimated to be around 20 times that of the sun. The average stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way is about 10 times heftier than the sun.Gaia-BH3 is located just 2,000 light years from Earth, making it the second-closest black hole to our planet ever discovered. The closest black hole to Earth is Gaia-BH1 (also discovered by Gaia), which is 1,560 light-years away. Gaia-BH1 has a mass around 9.6 times that of the sun, making it considerably smaller than this newly discovered black hole.Related: New view of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way hints at an exciting hidden feature (image)”Finding Gaia BH3 is like the moment in the film ‘The Matrix’ where Neo starts to ‘see’ the matrix,” George Seabrook, a scientist at Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London and a member of Gaia’s Black Hole Task Force, said in a statement sent to Space.com. “In our case, ‘the matrix’ is our galaxy’s population of dormant stellar black holes, which were hidden from us before Gaia detected them.”Seabroke added that Gaia BH3 is an important clue to this population, because it is the most massive stellar black hole found in our galaxy.Of course, Gaia-BH3 is a small fry compared to the supermassive black hole that dominates the heart of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), which has a mass 4.2 million times that of the sun. Supermassive black holes like Sgr A* aren’t created by the deaths of mass …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
