A black hole has been discovered near the Earth

It’s a black hole 10 times heavier than the Sun and 100 million times smaller – and therefore so dense that not even light can escape. Details from Hervé Poirier, editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Epsilon.

franceinfo: And this cosmic monster is only 1,500 light-years away?

Herve Poirier: This means that the light, if emitted, would take 1,500 years to reach us. Well, it’s not right next door (light only takes 8 minutes to arrive from the Sun), but on the scale of the Milky Way, it’s the inner suburbs – that’s just over 1% the size of our galaxy.

Physicists have been imagining these black holes for a hundred years. And the This is the latest discovery History will. Not only is it the closest it’s ever been discovered to Earth – it’s three times closer than the previous record. Especially because it’s the first truly dark black hole.

What does dark really mean?

All 20 other black holes known so far in the Milky Way devour gas clouds or a nearby star: so they are relatively easy to spot, thanks to the X-rays emitted during this very violent feast. But there is no: this black hole is sleeping, crouched in its darkness. There, in its place, telescopes literally see nothing. there is no light.

How do we know it’s there if we can’t see anything?

This is the big question we have been asking ourselves for 100 years. Its existence has been proven in fact thanks to its orbiting companion: a star very similar to our sun. The strange movement of this star, recorded by Gaia Space TelescopeIt aroused the interest of astrophysicists. And their calculations are finally official: the only way to explain this trajectory is to exist around a companion 10 times heavier, and infinitely darker — the researchers wonder even if there aren’t actually two black holes, so close together, orbiting each other.

This discovery calls for others?

The mere fact that this is the closest suggests that sleeping black holes outnumber voracious black holes. The team estimates that they can quickly find dozens more in the Gaia data they are analyzing. Knowing that models predict that there are still 100 million black holes in the galaxy.

Until now, only the most frantic people had been seen in the sky. We begin to see others, much more in number, who are there, all around us, unemotional, lurking in the dark. We’re starting to see the dark side of the galaxy…