The discovery of a drifting black hole in the Milky Way

Between 10 million and a billion black holes are hiding in Milky Way. However, discovering these things is not an easy task: they are only visible When they hunt it. However, invisible does not mean that it is undetectable. For the first time, an international team of scientists has discovered the existence of an isolated, inactive black hole at 5200 ± 600 light-years. The article describing their discovery, submitted to Astrophysical Journal Pending peer review, already available Printing on arXiv.

Lentils with black hole sauce

Even if we don’t see a file Black holeIts attraction is still exerted on its surroundings. Light passes close And so it deviates, which changes the apparent location and (virtual) brightness of that light source. This phenomenon is called microgravity. These fine lenses allow different things to be detected, both stars dim light, outer planetsFrom ” wandering planets “…Experiments prepared for observing the sky reveal thousands of similar events every year, most of them corresponding to stars moving in front of other stars.

The event was discovered on June 2, 2011 by New Zealand Japanese Software Microlens observations in astrophysics (MOA) and Polish Gravitational Optical Lens Experiment (Ogle), which peaked on July 20, is different, however: We report the first unambiguous discovery and measurement of Collective An isolated stellar mass black hole ‘, explained in their article Kailash Sahu, from Space Telescope Science Instituteand his colleagues. ” We show that a file lens It emits no detectable light, plus there is a greater mass than would be possible for white dwarf Or a neutron star confirming its nature as a black hole “.

This event, designated MOA-2011-BLG-191 / OGLE-2011-BLG-0462 (abbreviated MOA-11-191 / OGLE-11-0462), is remarkable: it was not only unusually long, lasting about 270 days, but It also showed surprisingly high amplification. Because high-magnification events are sensitive to disturbances, such as those that might result from a planet orbiting the lens body, the scientists met to take follow-up notes and perform the analysis.

runaway black hole

Notes from the region with help space telescope Hubblespread over eight periods spread over six years, allowed Saho and his team to discover that the best model for the data was a black hole. 7.1 ± 1.3 solar masses. for him event horizon So it would be only 42 kilometers in diameter. Thus, scientists discovered an invisible object, half the width of Corsica, just over 5,000 . light years.

In addition, the team was able to calculate Speed At which this body moves in the Milky Way: 45 kilometers per second. This makes it not just an old black hole, but a runaway black hole. He might have been expelled into space when her predecessor star It exploded as a supernova. If such a supernova explosion asymmetric, the asymmetric force can fling the core of a collapsing star into space. White Dwarf LP 40-365 and pulsar PSR J0002 + 6216 Two more examples of things in this case. According to a 2019 study, millions of black holes can exist in this state in the Milky Way.

It is possible that the object has drifted through a high-density region of space. According to the researchers, future work could include the use of telescopes in X rayTo determine whether a supposed black hole is accumulating or not Theme from the surrounding interstellar medium. Future instruments could also detect isolated stellar-mass black holes. Once an entire population is discovered and studied, this data can be used to learn more about MOA-11-191/OGLE-11-0462 and the black holes that inhabit the Milky Way in general.