Finding out about a huge black hole located in our own cosmic vicinity is surely not a pleasant idea for anyone. But unfortunately or not, that’s what astronomers led by the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) discovered after analyzing the Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3), according to ScienceAlert.
Surely you can’t suspect astronomers to have cut some corners when it comes to their new discovery. The black hole is so big that it is twelve times more massive than the Sun.
Located ‘only’ 1,500 light-years away from Earth
Being located somewhere 1,500 light-years away from our planet, we can definitely consider the black hole to be placed in our cosmic vicinity. The cosmic monster is also ‘minding its business,’ and there isn’t any chance that it will interact with our planet.
Dr. Chakrabari explained in a UAH press release:
It is not yet clear how these noninteracting black holes affect galactic dynamics in the Milky Way. If they are numerous, they may well affect the formation of our galaxy and its internal dynamics. We searched for objects that were reported to have large companion masses but whose brightness could be attributed to a single visible star. Thus, you have a good reason to think that the companion is dark.
Black holes remain among the most mysterious objects in the Universe, as astronomers struggle even nowadays to learn more about them. One of the reasons is that they can’t directly see a black hole, not even with powerful telescopes. Black holes absorb anything that gets too close, even light. That’s how strong their gravity is, which also explains why they’re invisible.
The new study was led by Dr. Sukanya Chakrabarti, who’s the Pei-Ling Chan Endowed Chair in the Department of Physics at UAH.
