Astronomers discover closest-known Black Hole to Earth

A team of astronomers using the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSFs NOIRLab in the US has discovered the closestknown Black Hole to EarthThis is the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellarmass Black Hole in the Milky Way whose close proximity to Earth a mere 1600 lightyears away offers an intriguing target of study to advance our understanding of the evolution of binary systemsTake the Solar System put a Black Hole where the Sun is and the Sun where the Earth is and you get this system explained Kareem ElBadry an astrophysicist at the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Max Planck Institute for AstronomyWhile there have been many claimed detections of systems like this almost all these discoveries have subsequently been refuted This is the first unambiguous detection of a Sunlike star in a wide orbit around a stellarmass Black Hole in our Galaxy ElBadry said in a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical SocietyAstronomers using the Gemini North telescope on Hawaii discovered this which the researchers have dubbed as Gaia BH1 This dormant Black Hole is about 10 times more massive than the Sun and is located about 1600 lightyears away in the constellation Ophiuchus making it three times closer to Earth than the previous record holder an Xray binary in the constellation of MonocerosThe new discovery was made possible by making exquisite observations of the motion of the black holes companion a Sunlike star that orbits the black hole at about the same distance as the Earth orbits the Sun The team originally identified the system as potentially hosting a Black HoleAby analysing data from the European Space Agencys Gaia spacecraftOur Gemini followup observations confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that the binary contains a normal star and at least one dormant Black Hole said ElBadry It is not at all clear how the solarmass star could have survived that episode ending up as an apparently normal star as the observations of the black hole binary indicateThis could indicate that there are important gaps in our understanding of how Black Holes form and evolve in binary systems and also suggests the existence of an asyetunexplored population of dormant Black Holes in binaries said the researchersAlso read Echoes of Earth music festival returns to Bengaluru on December 34This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever