Scientists have used new data from the Hubble telescope and proved that a star eclipse event reported in 2022 is actually evidence of the existence of a lone black hole. The researchers estimated its mass at 7 solar masses.
A lone black hole
Scientists from the Space Telescope Institute and the Center for Exoplanet Sciences at the University of St. Andrews have recently confirmed that they have succeeded in discovering a lone black hole in 2022. This information is contained in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal.
A black hole is an object that is completely invisible by itself. However, you can see the result of its interaction with the substance that it takes away from its neighbor. This is why all stellar-mass black holes confirmed so far have been members of binary systems.
However, according to astrophysical models of lone black holes in space should be much more, it is simply possible to see them only when they pass between us and some star, and its light dims. In 2022, scientists announced that they had found just such an event.
Confirmation
The new study is essentially a confirmation and refinement of the 2022 findings. Then scientists used data collected by the Hubble telescope between 2011 and 2017. Now observations made by the same telescope in 2021 and 2022 have been added.
The astronomers’ conclusion is unambiguous. The star was indeed covered by an invisible object with a mass of about 7 solar masses. Meaning that speculation in 2023 that it was actually a neutron star was not confirmed. It could only be a black hole.
In parallel with the discovery team, the same conclusion was reached by those scientists who suggested in 2023 that it was actually a traveling neutron star. True, this time their estimate of the object’s mass came out to at least 6 solar masses and with a large margin of error. This still leaves some room for speculation.
Now everyone is waiting for the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope to start operating in 2027. Its large mirror is expected to be able to capture significantly more such events.
According to phys.org
