Discovery of the giant black hole closest to Earth, this black monster is 8200 times bigger than the Sun

Astronomers have discovered the nearest giant black hole to Earth with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a rare ‘medium mass black hole’. The mass of this black hole is equal to about 8,200 Suns. It is much larger than medium mass black hole but extremely small compared to supermassive black holes.

Astronomers have discovered the nearest giant black hole to Earth with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a rare ‘medium mass black hole’. The mass of this black hole is equal to about 8,200 Suns. It is much larger than stellar mass black holes but extremely small compared to supermassive black holes.

The newly discovered intermediate mass black hole is located in a cluster of about ten million stars called Omega Centauri. This black hole is located about 18,000 light years from Earth. Omega Centauri is the remains of an ancient galaxy that has been swallowed by our Milky Way galaxy.

The discovery of this black hole suggests that Omega Centauri is actually the core of a small, separate galaxy whose growth was abruptly halted by the Milky Way. If this had not happened, this black hole would probably have become a supermassive black hole.

Three types of black holes

The black holes we usually talk about are stellar black holes or supermassive black holes. Stellar mass black holes have a mass of 5 to 100 times the mass of the Sun. Supermassive black holes are so big that they are called ‘supermassive black holes’. These giant black holes can be hundreds of thousands to tens of billions of times larger than the mass of our Sun. They are usually found in the centers of galaxies.

The nearest black hole

The closest stellar mass black hole discovered by scientists so far is named Gaia-BH1. It is only 1,560 light years away from Earth. We have already told you about the discovery of medium mass black holes. The closest supermassive black hole to Earth is Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) which is present at the center of our galaxy. The mass of Sgr A* is 4.3 million times that of the Sun and it is located 27,000 light years away from Earth.