11-05-2022, 07:34 AM
Gemini North on Mauna Kea detects our nearest black hole
There may be closer black holes but this is by far the closest we've detected thanks to the Gemini telescope on Mauna Kea. Don't worry, it's still far away and there's no threat to our solar system, but it does mean some new theories about binary systems of stars form. Most black holes are detected by X-rays from the material being stripped off a companion star by the black hole. In this case, the black hole is "dormant", there is no transfer of mass, but the orbit of its companion star gives away the fact it's a black hole.
https://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2022/...-to-earth/
"“Take the Solar System, put a black hole where the Sun is, and the Sun where the Earth is, and you get this system,” explained Kareem El-Badry, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, and the lead author of the paper describing this discovery. “While there have been many claimed detections of systems like this, almost all these discoveries have subsequently been refuted. This is the first unambiguous detection of a Sun-like star in a wide orbit around a stellar-mass black hole in our Galaxy.”"
There may be closer black holes but this is by far the closest we've detected thanks to the Gemini telescope on Mauna Kea. Don't worry, it's still far away and there's no threat to our solar system, but it does mean some new theories about binary systems of stars form. Most black holes are detected by X-rays from the material being stripped off a companion star by the black hole. In this case, the black hole is "dormant", there is no transfer of mass, but the orbit of its companion star gives away the fact it's a black hole.
https://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2022/...-to-earth/
"“Take the Solar System, put a black hole where the Sun is, and the Sun where the Earth is, and you get this system,” explained Kareem El-Badry, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, and the lead author of the paper describing this discovery. “While there have been many claimed detections of systems like this, almost all these discoveries have subsequently been refuted. This is the first unambiguous detection of a Sun-like star in a wide orbit around a stellar-mass black hole in our Galaxy.”"