An external group of astronomers has learn the closestblack holeto Earth . And , it is orbited by a asterisk similar to our Sun , the first clip such a binary system has been discovered in our extragalactic nebula . The object , cognize as Gaia BH1 , is located 1,600 light - years aside , and it has a mass about 10 times that of our Sun .
Black holes such as this are known as stellar - mass black holes . Their the great unwashed are at most 100 sentence that of our Sun and they were created in ruinous supernova explosion . About100 million of these objectsshould exist in the Milky Way , but only a few have been hear . Among them , almost all are actively feeding , steal material from a companion adept , and releasing a big amount of X - rays .
“ Take the Solar System , put a black hole where the Sun is , and the Sun where the Earth is , and you get this system , ” leave author Kareem El - Badry , an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian , and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy , enunciate in astatement . “ While there have been many claimed detective work of systems like this , almost all these discoveries have subsequently been refuted . This is the first univocal espial of a Sun - like asterisk in a wide orbit around a stellar - mass pitch-dark golf hole in our galaxy . ”
The squad count this detecting unambiguous after year of trace for sleeping black gob . And while the datum appear solid , it is not clear-cut exactly how this system came to be . The binary organisation ought to have been made by a monolithic genius about 20 times the size of it of our Sun , orb by the Sun - like fellow traveller we can still observe .
That massive star would have evolved into a tops red elephantine wizard in a subject of trillion of year . The outer layer of that lead would have engulf its fellow traveler , before the fatal collapse and subsequent explosion of the supernova . How the associate endure all that is a secret , suggesting that we may not have a staring understanding of how inglorious maw binaries form and evolve .
“ It is interesting that this system is not easy accommodate by standard binary phylogenesis models , ” concluded El - Badry . “ It poses many questions about how this binary organisation was formed , as well as how many of these hibernating black muddle there are out there . ”
The workplace was published inMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society .
