[Regnum] Scientists from the European orbital observatory GAIA have discovered the largest stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way galaxy, with a mass 33 times the mass of the Sun.The European Space Agency (ESA)reported this on its website on April 16.
According to astronomer at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) Pasquale Panuzzo, a scientist can make such a discovery only once in his life.
“This is the largest stellar hole in our galaxy, and the second closest discovered,” he said.
It is noted that this kind of celestial bodies arise due to the gravitational collapse of large stars, and scientists classified an object called Gaia BH3, found at a distance of 2 thousand light years from Earth, as a “sleeping giant”.
Typically, black holes have companion stars from which they pull matter, accompanied by a light trail, but this was not the case with Gaia BH3, making it extremely difficult to detect the object.
According to scientists, Gaia BH3 became the third “sleeping” black hole that was discovered during the operation of the observatory. According to ESA, this is the first time that such a large stellar-mass black hole has found itself within the Milky Way; before this, such objects were observed only in distant galaxies.
At the same time, in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of 26 thousand light years from Earth, there is a celestial object approximately 4 million times more massive than the Sun called Sagittarius A* (Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*). Unlike Gaia BH3, it formed from clouds of dust and gas.
As Regnum reported, on March 9, the Institute of Applied Geophysics reported a strong high-class M solar flare. According to space weather monitoring, the influence of solar X-ray bursts on the Earth’s ionosphere was at its lowest level during this period.
On the night of February 23, astronomers recorded the largest explosion in this solar cycle. The X6.3 class flare was the largest since 2017. And on February 22, the Laboratory of Solar Astronomy of the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences reported two powerful flares on the Sun in less than 12 hours.
