“Only” 1,000 light years separate us. European Southern Observatory (ESO) astronomers have discovered a new black hole, the closest to Earth ever detected, located in a stellar system visible to the naked eye, according to a study released Wednesday, May 6.
It is a stellar black hole, resulting from the collapse of a massive star on itself, as big as at least four times the Sun. Unlike supermassive black holes, this one is “silent”, that is to say that it “does not interact violently with its environment”, specifies ESO in a press release. It is therefore “really black” and hidden in the star system “HR 6819” adds the observatory.
“An invisible object with a mass of at least four times the Sun can only be one black hole“says astrophysicist Thomas Rivinius, lead author of the study in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. “This star system contains the closest black hole to Earth that we know of,” he said.
“We were totally surprised when we realized that this was the first star system visible to the naked eye with a black hole “, adds Petr Hadrava, from the Prague Academy of Sciences, co-author of the study. The object discovered is 1,000 light years away (several tens of millions of billions of kilometers), or “about 200 times further than the closest star to us, Alpha Centauri; which, on a stellar scale, is not far”, analyzes Pierre Kervella, astronomer of the Paris Observatory – PSL, interviewed by AFP.
Less than 30 black holes detected to date
For the time being, the study recalls, only two dozen black holes have been detected in our galaxy, which includes in its center a supermassive black hole. “Few stellar black holes are known in the Milky Way, but we think there are a lot, because they are natural products of the evolution of massive stars “, comments Pierre Kervella.
“As long as they are calm, that is, there is no accretion of matter, these objects are difficult to detect. If they’re not in a system, you can’t see them, “he said.
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