Research has shown that the closest black hole to Earth exists in the Hyades Cluster, about 150 light years away. The Hyades is an open star cluster located closest to Earth.
In an observation report published on the 18th, a research team from the University of Padua, Italy, raised the possibility that several massive black holes exist in the Hyades star cluster, located about 150 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus.
Open clusters are thought to be a collection of hundreds of stars that were born at the same time. Most stars that make up a cluster have common chemical properties. Astronomers believe that the Hyades cluster contains about 500 stars of various masses.
The Hyades open cluster contains stars of various masses. <사진=미 항공우주국(NASA) 공식 홈페이지>
While looking at the stars that make up the Hyades cluster, the research team came up with the possibility that several small black holes exist. If their hypothesis is correct, the black hole closest to Earth has been identified.
An investigation official explained, “Because black holes do not emit light, they cannot be directly observed. Therefore, we simulated the motion and evolution of stars in the Hyades cluster and compared the results with the stars’ actual positions and speeds.”
The star’s position and speed data were obtained from the latest data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) observation satellite ‘Gaia’. ‘Gaia’ is tracking the movements of billions of stars to create a 3D map of our galaxy.
An imaginary view of the black hole Gaia BH1, located about 1560 light years from Earth. <사진=미국 국립과학재단(NSF) 국립광학적외선천문학연구소(NOIRLab)·M.Zamani>
A research official said, “In this analysis, we identified the possibility that two to three small black holes exist in or near the Hyades Cluster. In this simulation, it is also possible to assume that some black holes currently or recently existed in the central part of the Hyades Cluster. “It does,” he said.
The astronomy community has chosen ‘Gaia BH1’ as the closest black hole to Earth. ‘Gaia BH1’ is 1560 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. If the University of Padua research team’s hypothesis is true, the distance of the black hole closest to Earth will be reduced by one-tenth.
The results of this research, conducted jointly by the European Southern Astronomical Observatory (ESO), the Institute for Space Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB-IEEC) in Spain, the University of Cambridge in the UK, and Sun Yat-Sen University in China, were first introduced in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Reporter Jeong Ian anglee@sputnik.kr
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