A massive black hole – about 20,000 times the size of the sun – has been confirmed as the closest to our solar system by an international study involving University of Queensland researchers.
A massive black hole – about 20,000 times the size of the sun – has been confirmed as the closest to our solar system by an international study involving University of Queensland researchers.
This discovery validates decades of speculation about the black hole’s existence, which the team found at the centre of the neighbouring star cluster Omega Centauri in the Milky Way, about 18,000 light-years from our solar system.
The study involved analysing and cataloguing 1.4 million stars in the cluster, which were then compared against theoretical models developed by UQ’s Associate Professor Holger Baumgardt.
“Led by the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie in Germany, our team searched for fast-moving stars expected to exist near concentrated masses, like black holes,” Dr Baumgardt said.
Read more at: University of Queensland
A new coloured ESA/Hubble image of Omega Centauri showing location of black hole. (Photo Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Häberle (MPIA))
