GAIA-BH3 - SCI &
TECH
News: Astronomers spot a massive
‘sleeping giant’ black hole less than 2,000 light-years from Earth
What's in the news?
● Astronomers have recently detected Gaia-BH3, identified as the most massive stellar black hole known in the Milky Way galaxy.
Gaia-BH3:
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Gaia-BH3 stands out as the most massive stellar black hole ever identified within the Milky Way
galaxy.
Detection:
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Its detection stemmed from observations made by the
European Space Agency's Gaia mission,
revealing peculiar motion effects on its orbiting companion star.
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Verification of Gaia-BH3's mass involved
observations from the European Southern
Observatory's Very Large Telescope and other ground-based observatories.
Characteristics:
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Gaia-BH3 boasts a staggering mass approximately 33 times that of our sun.
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Positioned 1,926 light-years away in the Aquila
constellation, it ranks as the second-closest
known black hole to Earth.
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Its nearest counterpart, Gaia-BH1, resides approximately 1,500 light-years away, featuring a
mass nearly 10 times that of our sun.
Comparison with
Supermassive Black Holes:
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Stellar-mass black holes, like Gaia-BH3, form
either from the gravitational collapse of a single star or the merger of two
neutron stars.
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They exhibit masses akin to those of stars,
typically ranging from about 3 to 50 times the mass of our sun.
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In contrast, supermassive
black holes, exemplified by Sagittarius A* at the Milky Way's center,
possess masses exceeding 50,000 times that of our sun.
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Unlike stellar-mass black holes, supermassive ones
are too massive to originate from a
single star's collapse, and their formation remains a mystery.
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Supermassive black holes are invariably situated at
the core of galaxies, constituting a ubiquitous feature across galactic
structures.