There is a black hole that is just hanging around, quietly thinking of its own business.
This is the first time that we've been able to identify an inactive black hole that isn't within our own universe.
There was some wiggle room for doubt because of the evidence of its true identity. The authors think this new finding is a good bet.
The object is located in a satellite galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. The discovery could help us find more black holes in the future and has implications for our understanding of black hole formation to begin with.
The team behind the report is thrilled because of their skepticism towards previous black hole findings.
"For the first time, our team got together to report on a black hole discovery, instead of rejecting it," said astronomer Tomer Shenar.
We found a needle in a haystack.
There are black holes. Not even light can travel through a vacuum at the speed of light, because of their extreme density.
They emit no light that we can see. The exception is when they are feeding. There is a tell-tale sign of X-ray radiation from the vicinity immediately around the black hole.
Black holes are either active or quiescent. If you know how to look, it's possible that it can be given away. If a stellar-mass black hole is in a system with another star, the motion of the companion could indicate the black hole's presence.
Dark mass are not black holes. The most famous example was a black hole that was said to be the closest yet to Earth. No option can be left un considered if a dim companion is to be blamed.
Shenar and his team have been debunking such discoveries with the help of astronomy professors. That doesn't mean they don't believe in black holes, just that the evidence needs to be strong.
For more than two years, we have been looking for such systems.
A stellar nursery where young, extremely massive stars can be found is the focus of their search. Around 1,000 of these young massive stars were looked at by the researchers.
The barycenter is the center of gravity when two objects are in motion. The barycenter is close enough to the center of the Sun that it would be hard to see the star moving from one place to another. It would be easier to detect the Sun's circling of the barycenter if it were larger.
We can detect this wobbling movement in the spectrum of light from the object as it stretches into longer (redder) wavelength light moving away from us and into shorter (bluer) wavelength light moving towards us.
A blue-white O-type star 25 times the mass of the Sun was found by the team after searching their sample. The companion was 9 times the mass of the Sun when they calculated its mass. The black hole's event horizon is 17 miles across.
It wasn't visible. The upper mass limit for the stars is less than the Sun's. The stars that wobbled were ruled out using the team's techniques to detect light from faint companion stars and model the light expected from a faint companion.
None of the alternatives fit the data.
El- Badry had doubts when Tomer asked him to double check his findings. There was no plausible explanation for the data that didn't involve a black hole.
VFTS 243 holds important clues about black holes. Scientists think there are more than one scenario. A giant star explodes into space and collapses into a black hole after being born of fire and fury.
A dying star, no longer supported by the outward pressure supplied by atomic fusion, collapses in on itself.
Shenar said that the star that formed the black hole in VFTS 243 appeared to have collapsed completely. Our study provides one of the most direct indications that this is a direct collapse. There are huge implications for the origin of black-hole mergers in the universe.
The team invited other astronomer to scrutinize theirs after they scrutinized so many other black hole discoveries. There is a fair.
The research was published in a journal.
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