Scientists have discovered a dormant black hole outside the Milky Way for the first time. This dormant black hole, named vfts 243, is located in the Poisonous Spider Nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its mass is at least 9 times that of the sun, and it is about 654.38+0.6 million light years away from the Earth. Scientists first discovered a dormant black hole outside the Milky Way.
Scientists first discovered a dormant black hole 1 outside the Milky Way. An international team of experts, famous for debunking the wrong discovery of black holes, discovered a dormant stellar mass black hole in the large magellanic cloud near the Milky Way. This black hole is at least 9 times the mass of the sun and orbits a hot blue star with 25 times the mass of the sun. This discovery was published in the journal Natural Astronomy on June 5438+08.
The research team found that the star that produced the black hole disappeared without any signs of strong explosion. Tommer Scheiner, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, who led the study, said that this was the first time that an expert nicknamed "Black Hole Forgery Group" reported the discovery of a black hole, rather than denying it.
The researchers said that this discovery is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Although other similar black hole candidates have been proposed before, this is the first black hole with dormant stellar mass definitely detected outside the Milky Way.
When a massive star comes to the end of its life and collapses under its own gravity, it will form a star-mass black hole. In a binary system, two stars revolve around each other, which leaves a black hole and a luminous companion in orbit. If a black hole does not emit a high level of X-ray radiation, it is "dormant", which is how such a black hole is usually detected.
In order to find a binary star system named VFTS 243, the research team searched for nearly 1 1,000 massive stars in the Tarantula Nebula region of the Large Magellanic Cloud, looking for stars that may have black holes as companion stars. This recognition is very difficult because the interaction between the target and the surrounding environment is very small.
This discovery enables the team to understand the process of black hole formation from a unique perspective. Theoretically, when the core of a dying massive star collapses, a star-mass black hole will be formed, but it is still uncertain whether this is accompanied by a powerful supernova explosion.
Sinel explained that the star that formed the black hole in VFTS 243 seems to have completely collapsed without any signs of previous explosion. The new research provides one of the most direct evidences for this "direct collapse", which has a great influence on the origin of black hole merger in the universe.
The discovery of VFTS 243 black hole is attributed to the observation of Tarantula Nebula by the large array multi-element spectrometer (FLAMES) on the European Southern Observatory (ESO)VLT for six years. FLAMES allows people to observe more than 100 celestial bodies at a time, which greatly saves time compared with studying each celestial body one by one.
Experts from the Black Hole Forgery Group still encourage other astronomers to review this discovery and hope that their work can find other stellar-mass black holes orbiting massive stars. It is estimated that there will be thousands of black holes in the Milky Way and Magellanic Cloud.
Scientists first discovered a dormant black hole outside the Milky Way. On June 5438+08, 2008, a research team composed of American and European astronomers announced that they had discovered a dormant stellar black hole in a galaxy adjacent to the Milky Way for the first time.
dredge for a needle in the sea
The researchers wrote in the British journal Nature Astronomy published on the same day that this dormant black hole was named vfts 243, located in the poisonous spider nebula of the Large Magellanic Galaxy, with a mass of at least 9 times that of the sun and a distance of about 654.38+0.6 million light years from the Earth.
Researchers say finding a dormant black hole in the vast universe is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Black holes are celestial bodies with small volume and large mass. Like the "devouring mouth" of the universe, even light can't escape and can't be directly observed. Previous studies have shown that dormant black holes exist widely in the universe, but because they don't emit high-intensity X-rays like many other black holes, they are difficult to find.
According to CNN, astronomers observed 1000 massive stars with the very large telescope of the European Southern Observatory, and found that it takes about 10 days for a star whose mass is about 25 times that of the sun to orbit an "invisible" celestial body. The analysis results show that the "invisible" celestial body is vfts 243 dormant black hole.
This is the first photo of a black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy released by astronomers on May 12. Xinhua News Agency (Photo courtesy of Event Vision Telescope)
Clear and definite
According to Reuters, this dormant black hole was formed by the death of a star 20 times the mass of the sun.
Researchers say that dormant black holes have never been "definitely" found outside the Milky Way before. CNN reported that in the past two years, more than a dozen discoveries about black hole binary systems have been questioned. However, astronomers involved in this study said that they ruled out all other possibilities and decided that this "invisible" object was a black hole.
Tommer Chainal, the main author of the research report and a researcher at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said that although this research can't be said to be foolproof, none of the scholars who participated in this research found that there were "defects" in this research. He welcomed peer review of this finding.
Scientists first discovered a dormant black hole outside the Milky Way. According to the British "Guardian" reported on June 5438+08, scientists discovered a dormant black hole outside the Milky Way for the first time, which is 9 times the mass of the sun. The researchers called this an "exciting discovery".
A researcher at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom said that this is "the first black hole detected outside the Milky Way". For more than two years, researchers have been looking for a black hole binary system and named it VFTS243.
Scientists have discovered black holes in alien clusters in the Milky Way. (data map)
When a massive star comes to the end of its life, it will collapse under its own gravity, thus forming a star-level black hole. Two stars revolve around each other, leaving a black hole and a luminous companion in their orbits. If a black hole does not emit high levels of X-ray radiation, it means that it is dormant. Dormant black holes are hard to find because they rarely interact with their surroundings.
It is reported that the newly discovered dormant black hole is at least 9 times the mass of the sun and orbits a hot blue star with a mass 25 times that of the sun. The researchers found that the stars in the black hole binary system disappeared and there was no sign of supernova explosion. Schneider, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, believes that stars do not explode when they collapse, which "has a great influence on exploring the origin of black hole merger".