Scientist discover the nearest Black Hole to Earth, 1,000 light years away from us
Black Holes are one of the biggest mysteries of the universe. A place that absorbs everything around it where even light cannot escape, where our perception of time does not mean anything there. Black holes are equally as dangerous as they are fascinating. They give rise to a multitude of theories myths and other considerations. This is why Astronomers, Physicists and Astrophysicists all over the world are interested in this research. They want to bring light into the darkness so to speak. Scientists made an enormous discovery, the closest black hole to earth. Astronomers discover a black hole only 1,000 light-years away from Earth. Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory or ESO have unintentionally discovered a black hole from an observatory in Chile. Originally the researchers had wanted to study a double star system called HR68:19. Double stars are so close together that they are believed to be connected by gravity. Sometimes they appear as a single star in the sky but the double star system HR68:19 turned out to actually be a triple star system. The third component of this triple star system is a black hole. With a distance of 1,000 light-years this system, it is so close to the earth that the companion stars can be seen with the bare eye from the southern hemisphere when the sky is clear. In contrast to other black holes which can be recognized by their aggressive interaction with their surroundings and the release of x-rays, the newly discovered black hole behaves strangely calm.
How can scientists discover a calm black hole?
The companion stars may be visible to the bare eye but of course the black hole itself is not. So then how does scientists know that they are dealing with a black hole? The ESO team first noticed that one of the two companion stars was moving around an invisible object. The scientists were able to calculate the mass of this object by taking into account the speed of the stars. So they discovered that it is an object with a mass of four solar masses. According to the scientists such a large mass in such a small space only leads to one conclusion. It must be a black hole. The fact that a black hole constantly devours its surroundings is a myth that can be proven wrong by the existence of such black holes. Basically a black hole behaves like a star. The gravitational force of a black hole is limited so to speak. Outside of its field stars and planets can exist. The distance is big enough that the earth would continue to orbit around the Sun even if it collapsed into a black hole. Of course however that would suggest fatal consequences for life on Earth.
