Found the largest black hole in our galaxy – what are these strange “celestial bodies”.

With a mass 33 times greater than that of the Sun, the most massive stellar black hole yet discovered has been found in our galaxy.

Discovery of the smallest black hole in the Milky Way Galaxy Data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission. The research was published in the journal «Astronomy and Astrophysics».

The black hole BH3 It was discovered because it imposes a strange oscillating motion on the companion star around which it orbits. Its mass is 33 times larger than the sun. Data from the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) and other ground-based telescopes were used to verify the cluster.

Stellar black holes Formed as a result of the collapse of massive stars, those discovered in our Milky Way Galaxy average about 10 times the mass of the Sun..

A black hole is the point in space where the core of a giant star once existed, a core containing material more than two and a half times the mass of the Sun that lost its battle against gravity in the final stage of the star's evolution. This causes its matter to collapse due to gravity and is compressed to a greater degree than the matter of the neutron star.

Even the next most massive stellar black hole previously discovered (Cygnus X-1) reaches 21 solar masses. However, the most massive black hole in our galaxy as a whole is clearly Sagittarius A*, which is about four million times the mass of the Sun.

It's also worth noting that this stellar black hole is very close to us, just 2,000 light-years away, in the constellation Aegis, making it the second closest known black hole to Earth.