Closest Black Hole To Earth Discovered: All You Need To Know

Astronomers have stumbled across a new black hole that¡¯s closest to the Earth, dubbed Gaia BH1, reveals a report by CNET.

International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine/M. Zamani

Lucky for us, it¡¯s a dormant black hole and it¡¯s around 10 times more massive than our sun, located around 1,600 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. The black hole, according to researchers, is three times closer to Earth than the previous closest black hole that was spotted in the Monoceros constellation.

In fact, it¡¯s so close that the National Science Foundation¡¯s NOIRLab astronomy centre says it¡¯s literally in our ¡®cosmic backyard.

Astrophysicist Kareem El-Badry in a NOIRLab statement, explained, "Take the Solar System, put a black hole where the Sun is, and the Sun where the Earth is, and you get this system.¡±

¡°While 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 sun-like star in a wide orbit around a stellar-mass black hole in our galaxy."

Researchers while sifting through Gaia data came across a star very much like ours that had a distinct wobble as if something was pulling on it, which eventually turned out to be a dormant black hole.

Unsplash

Dormant black holes are difficult to detect since they're not very active in nature. Gaia team member Tineke Roegiers added, "The sole reason this black hole could be found was due to Gaia's ability to see the position of the star (that is orbiting about it) with such a high precision. This position wobbles about when the star moves around the black hole."

Later, astronomers turned to the Gemini North Telescope operated by NOIRLab in Hawaii, which allowed astronomers to get precise measurements of the orbit of the star spotted by Gaia. researchers couldn¡¯t find any plausible astrophysical scenario that explained the observed orbit of the system that doesn't involve at least one black hole.

To the unaware, such black holes form after a massive star collapses so Gaia BH1 and its companion star are essentially forming a binary system. The system¡¯s formation and evolution still remain a mystery. According to astronomers, its existence is difficult to explain with standard binary evolution models.

Keep visiting Indiatimes.com for the latest science and technology news.