The Unicorn', closest known black hole to Earth, may be galaxy's smallest

 Researchers said that 'The Unicorn' black hole is roughly three times the mass of our sun. A luminous star called a red giant orbits with the black hole in a so-called binary star system named V723 Mon. The black hole is located about 1,500 light-years away from Earth

Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects that possess gravitational pulls so strong that not even light can escape. 'The Unicorn' falls into what the researchers called a "mass gap" between the largest-known neutron stars - objects similarly formed by a large star's collapse. (Photo: Ohio state laboratories via REUTERS )
SCIENCE

'The Unicorn', closest known black hole to Earth, may be galaxy's smallest

Researchers said that 'The Unicorn' black hole is roughly three times the mass of our sun. A luminous star called a red giant orbits with the black hole in a so-called binary star system named V723 Mon. The black hole is located about 1,500 light-years away from Earth.

Scientists have discovered what may be the smallest known black hole in the Milky Way galaxy and the closest to our solar system - an object so curious that they nicknamed it 'the Unicorn.

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Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects that possess gravitational pulls so strong that not even light can escape. 'The Unicorn' falls into what the researchers called a "mass gap" between the largest-known neutron stars - objects similarly formed by a large star's collapse. (Photo: Ohio state laboratories via REUTERS )
Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects that possess gravitational pulls so strong that not even light can escape. 'The Unicorn' falls into what the researchers called a "mass gap" between the largest-known neutron stars - objects similarly formed by a large star's collapse. (Photo: Ohio state laboratories via REUTERS )
SCIENCE

'The Unicorn', closest known black hole to Earth, may be galaxy's smallest

Researchers said that 'The Unicorn' black hole is roughly three times the mass of our sun. A luminous star called a red giant orbits with the black hole in a so-called binary star system named V723 Mon. The black hole is located about 1,500 light-years away from Earth.
Reuters |
PUBLISHED ON APR 23, 2021 07:33 AM IST

Scientists have discovered what may be the smallest known black hole in the Milky Way galaxy and the closest to our solar system - an object so curious that they nicknamed it 'the Unicorn.'

The researchers said the black hole is roughly three times the mass of our sun, testing the lower limits of size for these extraordinarily dense objects that possess gravitational pulls so strong not even light can escape. A luminous star called a red giant orbits with the black hole in a so-called binary star system named V723 Mon.

The black hole is located about 1,500 light years - the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) - from Earth. While it may be the closest one to us, it is still far away. By way of comparison, the closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is 4 light years away.

Black holes like this one form when massive stars die and their cores collapse.



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