Astronomers find closest known black hole to Earth
A sun-like star orbiting closest black hole to Earth
This animation shows a Sun-like star orbiting Gaia BH1, the closest black hole to Earth, located about 1600 light-years away. Observations by Gemini North, one of the twin telescopes of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, were crucial to constraining the orbital motion and hence masses of the two components in the binary system, allowing the team to identify the central body as a black hole roughly 10 times as massive as our Sun. (Credit: T. Müller [MPIA], PanSTARRS DR1 [K. C. Chambers et al. 2016], ESA/Gaia/DPAC).
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronomers have discovered the closest known black hole to Earth, just 1,600 light-years away.
Scientists reported Friday that this black hole is 10 times more massive than our sun. And it’s three times closer than the previous record-holder.
It was identified by observing the motion of its companion star, which orbits the black hole at about the same distance as Earth orbits the sun.
The black hole was initially identified using the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft, said Kareem El-Badry of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Astronomers using the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, have discovered the closest-known black hole to Earth. This is the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way. Its close proximi (International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine/M. Zamani)
El-Badry and his team followed up with the International Gemini Observatory in Hawaii to confirm their findings, which were published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The researchers are uncertain how the system formed in the Milky Way. Named Gaia BH1, it's located in the constellation Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer.
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