Astronomers have discovered a terrifying black hole that roams the Milky Way and could one day swallow our sun.
The visible universe is full of black holes, i.e. monsters that eat nearby stars. According to Italian scientists from the International School for Advanced Research (ISRC).SISSA), they published the results of their calculations in the Astrophysical Journal, there are 40 billion, or 40 quintillion black holes, so it is not surprising that there are black holes in our Milky Way, and two of them have already been found.
One of them is the so-called “A * Sagittarius is located in the center of the galaxy, 26,000 light-years away from us.
It does not pose any threat to us, like others, but the black hole, which was discovered near it, about 5 thousand light-years away, is moving, flying through the Milky Way at a speed of 45 kilometers per second. The existence of this monster was recently confirmed by astronomers, Casey Lam and Jessica Low from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jessica Lowe reviewed data obtained by her colleagues at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
It turns out that the black hole distorts its gravitational field, which represents the phenomenon of deflecting light. And there was an effect of the so-called micro-gravitational lens. Thanks to her, the stars behind the huge space orb started to appear bigger and brighter.
However, Casey Lamm thinks his colleagues were a bit wrong. The wandering black hole is smaller than it appears and not 7 times heavier than the Sun, but not 4 times larger. And it flies slower, that is, at a speed of 30 kilometers per second.
Why is the black hole moving? – because it was thrown aside by the slightly skewed explosion of the star it had caused. And it sometimes happens with huge stars. The progenitor of the wandering black hole was 30 times heavier than the sun.
Astronomers have not yet determined whether the monster is actually heading towards us. But if the flying beast entered the solar system, it would destroy the sun and gradually absorb it with all its contents. It won’t happen soon, but in a few million years. And yet the wandering beast is still very far from us.