The nearest black hole discovered is only 150 light years from Earth
Simulation results show that there are 2-3 black holes hidden in the Hyades cluster that are closer to Earth than the two previous record holders .
Astronomers may have discovered near-Earth black holes lurking in the Hyades Cluster of stars just 150 light-years from the Sun. In fact, these black holes may have been ejected from the dense cluster millions of years ago and are wandering alone in the galaxy. Even so, they are 10 times closer than the previous closest black hole to Earth, Space reported on September 12.
Photo of the Hyades Cluster. (Photo: Jose Mtanous)
Located in the constellation Taurus, the Hyades is a cluster of hundreds of stars. It is a collection of stars that formed together from the same giant cloud of gas and dust. As a result, the stars in this cluster share basic characteristics such as chemical composition and age.
To find the closest black hole to Earth, a team led by Stefano Torniamenti, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padua, simulated the motion and evolution of stars in the Hyades. The simulations were also run with the presence of black holes in the equation. The scientists then compared the results from the simulations with previous observations of the speed and location of the cluster's stellar population. The data came from the Gaia space telescope.
Torniamenti and his colleagues found that the model that best fits observations of the Hyades is one that includes two or three black holes within the cluster. That's because if those black holes were violently ejected from the Hyades when the cluster was a quarter of its current age (about 625 million years), the stellar population would not have evolved enough to erase all evidence of their existence.
Even today, if the black holes were ejected from the Hyades, they would still be the closest to Earth due to their proximity to the cluster . The previous record was held by two black holes, Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2, discovered in Gaia data earlier this year. Gaia BH1 is 1,560 light years from Earth, while Gaia BH2 is 3,800 light years away. Still, they are 10 to 20 times farther away than the Hyades.
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