A new study of the first ever discovered black hole has confirmed that our understanding of it is wrong after half a decade. The new information suggests that scientists may have gone by their estimates by as much as 50 percent
Artist’s impression of the Cygnus X-1 system (Image: ICRAR)
New research published in the journal Science uses radio astrometry to update the distance to the Cygnus X-1 black hole, the first black hole discovered in 1964. With the revised measurements, the scientists are now proposing a completely new black hole mass for Cygnus X-1 solar masses – 21.2 ± 2.2.
This makes the black hole about 50 percent larger than the researchers and scientists previously thought. For reference, that is 21 times the mass of our sun.
The Cygnus X-1 was discovered through a pair of Geiger counters sent into space on a sub-orbital rocket. This is one of the closest black holes to Earth. However, there is another reason for his reputation on Earth.
There was a famous scientific bet in 1974 between physicist Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne. On the record, Hawking bet it wasn’t a black hole. Hawking accepted the message in 1990 after being endorsed by observational data.
Even though they have been proven to exist, scientists have been far from their estimates, as the new study suggests. The credit for correcting this mistake goes to an international team of astronauts who used the Very Good Baseline Array. VLBA is a continental-sized radio telescope made up of 10 ships across the United States, helping to measure distances in space.
Astronauts were observing the Cygnus X-1 system from different angles using the Earth’s orbit around the sun (Image: ICRAR)
“If we can see the same thing from different places, we can work out how far away we are by measuring how far the object is likely to move relative to the object. background, ”said the lead researcher, Professor James Miller-Jones of Curtin University and the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).
“If you hold your finger out in front of your eyes and look at it with one eye at a time, you can see that your finger seems to jump from one place to another. It’s just the same principle. ”
“This method and our new measurements show that the system is further away than previously thought, with a much larger black hole,” he concludes.