Scientists Discover Black Hole in Earth's "Cosmic Backyard"
Scientists have uncovered a pair of black holes in Earth's "cosmic backyard." Monday, the European Space Agency unveiled it's Gaia spacecraft managed to collect data revealing the existence of both Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2, two black holes less than 4,000 light-years away from our planet. Gaia BH1 is almost shockingly close at just 1,560 light-years away, residing in the constellation Ophiuchus, while Gaia BH2 is 3,800 light-years away. The latter is found in the constellation Centaurus.
"What sets this new group of black holes apart from the ones we already knew about is their wide separation from their companion stars. These black holes likely have a completely different formation history than X-ray binaries," the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics' Kareem El-Badry said in a statement.
X-ray binary is the typical designation given to black hole-companion star systems. Because the black holes aren't swallowing matter and instead, blasting out powerful bursts of energy, they allow scientists to easily find where they're located. The two new Gaia black holes, however, do not emit light and were only detected after researching their gravitational effect on nearby stars.
"These black holes likely have a completely different formation history than X-ray binaries," added El-Badry. "We suspected that there could exist black holes in wider systems, but we were not sure how they would have formed. Their discovery means that we must adapt our theories about the evolution of binary star systems, as it is not clear yet how these systems form."
The discovery of Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2 and their close proximity to Earth have scientists hopeful more discoveries could soon happen—at least when the Gaia spacecraft releases its next data dump in 2025.
"This is very exciting because it now implies that these black holes in wide orbits are actually common in space – more common than binaries where the black hole and star are closer. But the trouble is detecting them. The good news is that Gaia is still taking data, and its next data release (in 2025) will contain many more of these stars with mystery black hole companions in it," astronomer Yvetter Cendes concluded.
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