The "Sleeping Giant"
You don't have to be a space nerd to be fascinated with black holes. Keep in mind that black holes aren't actually "holes" in space, they're giant concentrations of matter that are densely compressed into a very small area in outer space. Recently, astronomers discovered a giant black hole after noticing an abnormal "wobble" in space. But just how big is this black hole? Let's get into it.
Known as Gaia BH3, the newly discovered black hole has a mass almost 33 times that of our sun. If you're looking for Gaia BH3 all you need to do is stare off into the distance, about 1,926 light-years, all the way to the Aquila constellation. This is the second-closest black hole to Earth, that we know of at least. As of this writing the closest black hole is Gaia BH1, which is about 1,500 light-years away with a mass that's almost 10 times that of our sun.
The Wobble That Gave The Black Hole Away
After going through observations taken by the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope, astronomers discovered a strange aberration in the middle of space which was caused Gaia BH3’s gravitational control.
How To Find A Black Hole
Most "dormant" black holes don't have anything close enough to feed on, which makes them much harder to find. What makes them even harder to find? They don't generate any light. Other stellar black holes take light away from their closest stars, which releases X-Rays that astronomers can see through telescopes.
A Once In A Life Time Discovery
Lead study author Pasquale Panuzzo, an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris, notes that the last thing he and the other astronomers were expecting to find was a black hole. He stated:
No one was expecting to find a high-mass black hole lurking nearby, undetected so far. This is the kind of discovery you make once in your research life.
How Did This Black Hole Get So Big?
It's believed that a black hole with a mass similar to Gaia BH3’s likely formed after the collapse of a metal-poor star. These celestial bodies contain hydrogen and helium, incredibly heavy elements, drain mass over the course of their lifetimes which can lead to a high-mass black hole. However, astronomers haven't been able to connect high-mass black holes to metal-poor stars until the recent discovery of this new giant black hole.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Astronomers hope that they can use the discovery of Gaia BH3 to understand the way that the galaxy formed. Carole Mundell, the European Space Agency’s director of science said in a statement:
It’s impressive to see the transformational impact Gaia is having on astronomy and astrophysics. Its discoveries are reaching far beyond the original purpose of the mission, which is to create an extraordinarily precise multi-dimensional map of more than a billion stars throughout our Milky Way.
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