NASA Hubble Space Telescope Helps Confirm the First Solitary Black Hole

For the first time, the existence of a lone black hole has been confirmed by scientists. This black hole has no star orbiting it. According to the statement by Kailash Sahu, astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, “it’s the only one so far”. The discovery made headlines in the year 2022, when Sahu and his Team claimed a dark object was moving through the constellation Sagittarius. However, another team of researchers disputed the claims by identifying the object as a neutron star.

About the Discovery

This discovery came into the light three years ago. All the stellar-mass black holes are accompanied by stars that betray their presence and race around an invisible star, along with three times the sun’s mass. Such a procedure indicates the presence of black holes rather than a neutron star.

On the contrary, the solitary black holes are expected to be common, but are very hard to find. Likewise, the one in Sagittarius was identified while passing through the dim background star and additionally shifting its position due to the black hole’s gravity. Recently, Sahu’s efforts were reported in the Astrophysical Journal, about the new observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, confirming the presence of a lone black hole in Sagittarious.

Black Hole Key Findings

Although the passage occurred first in the year 2011, the original discovery relied on the Hubble measurements from the year 2011 to 2017. However, the new data has been gained from the Hubble observations from the year 2021 to 2022, accompanied by the data received from the Gaia Spacecraft.

How Big is a Black Hole?

The ideal size of this lone black home is seven times as huge as the sun. In recent observations, a different team of scientists revisited the project and identified the size as massive as six times that of the sun. The theories of the scientists match with that of Sahu’s observation.

The research continues for detecting the black holes in Sagittarius. Located at a distance of 5,000 light years away from Earth, this solitary black hole is yet to be observed from different aspects. The astronomer, Sahu, hopes to find more lone black holes with the effective use of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is set to launch in the year 2027.