Hidden Black Hole Discovered by Scientists

Hidden Black Hole Discovered by Scientists

A Black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that nothing no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light can escape from it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform spacetime to form a black hole.

What is in Research?

In the study, scientists looked at a binary star system made up of the giant star 2MASS J05215658+4359220 and a companion, which, through a unique approach, they found is likely a low-mass black hole, lead author Todd Thompson, a professor in the Department of Astronomy at The Ohio State University, told Space.com.

To find the hidden black hole, the team began by poring through data from APOGEE, a survey that uses spectroscopy data to scour the sky for stars. After observing over 100,000 stars, the team identified which stars had significant doppler shift, or redshift and blueshift.

Redshift occurs when the wavelengths of light coming from objects moving away from Earth get longer, and the object appears red; blueshift occurs when the wavelengths of light coming from objects moving closer shorten, and the object appears blue.

Identifying Black Hole

This black hole is approximately 3.3 times the mass of the sun. That makes it much less massive than black holes in bright, X-ray-emitting systems, which are usually five to six solar masses. It's also less massive than black holes that merge across the universe in gravitational waves, which are often 20 to 30 solar masses, Thompson said. "There are very few or possibly no systems that contain a black hole of around 3 or 3.3 [solar masses] … This is a very-low-mass system for a black hole," Thompson said.

In April 2019, the Black Hole - First Ever Image Revealed

A team of 200 scientist were working on the project. Image was captured by Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), it is a network of eight linked Telescopes.

The supermassive black hole in the core of supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87, with a mass ~7 billion times the Sun's, as depicted in the first image released by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

The research is still On.