A new study has revealed new information about the first black hole ever discovered – which was spotted in 1964 and became a friendly topic between eminent scientists – suggests that it is more bigger than before.
Researchers said Thursday that new ideas about the black hole of Cygnus X-1, torn in a stellar marriage with a large and light star, show that it is 21 times the mass of our sun, about 50 percent larger. what we previously believed.
Although it is still one of the closest black holes, they found it to be a little further away than previously estimated, at 7,200 light years – the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles ( 9.5 trillion km) – from Earth.
Black holes are very dense, with gravity pulls so brutal that not even light escapes. Some – the “supermassive” black holes – are quite large, like the one at the Milky Way galaxy center 4 million times the mass of the sun. Smaller “stellar-mass” black holes occupy a single star mass.
The Cygnus X-1 is the most recognizable black hole at Milky Way and among the strongest X-ray sources visible from Earth, said astronaut James Miller-Jones of Curtin University and the International Center for Research Radio Astronomy in Australia, led the study published in the journal Science.
This black hole spins so fast, almost at a light speed, that it approaches the highest level seen under Albert Einstein ‘s physics theory of general relativity, Miller – Jones said.
He wears material blowing from the surface of the companion star he closes tightly, “blue blue” about 40 times the beauty of our sun. It started there 4 million to 5 million years ago as a star up to 75 times the mass of the sun and fell into a black hole a few tens of thousands of years ago.
The research included data from the True Baseline Array radio telescope containing 10 U.S. observation stations.
After the Cygnus X-1 was first introduced as a black hole, a bet was placed between physicist Stephen Hawking, who objected to being one, and Kip Thorne, who placed a bet e. Hawking eventually surrendered, due to a subscription to Thorne’s Pentne magazine.
“Of course, I didn’t have any wagers riding on those decisions,” Miller-Jones said.
© Thomson Reuters 2021
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