PONTIANAK NEWS – Astronomers have found the closest black hole to Earth, the first clear detection reveals such a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way Galaxy. Its proximity to Earth, only 1,600 light years away, offers it an interesting study target to advance the understanding of the evolution of binary systems.
The US National Science Foundation provided financial support for the work. The astronomers used the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii, which is operated by NOIRLab NSF, one of the International Gemini Observatory’s twin telescopes.
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This discovery was made possible by observing the motion of a black hole companion, a sun-like star orbiting the black hole at roughly the same distance as Earth orbits the sun. While there are possibly millions of stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way galaxy, the few black holes that have been detected were revealed through their energetic interactions with companion stars.
As material from a nearby star spirals toward the black hole, the black hole becomes extremely hot and produces intense X-rays and jets of material. If the black hole is not active and cannot be detected directly.
This dormant black hole is about 10 times as massive as the sun and is located about 1,600 light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, making it three times closer to Earth than the previous record holder.
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“Take the solar system, put the black hole where the sun is, and the sun where the Earth is, and you will get this system ,explained Kareem El-Badry, astrophysicist and lead author of the paper published in Monthly Notices of the Government Astronomical Society .
The team relied not only on Gemini North’s outstanding observing capabilities, but also on Gemini North’s ability to provide data at a limited time, as the team only had a short time to conduct follow-up observations.
