Milky Way, our galaxy, is a Wonderland of this huge and mysterious space. The researchers have spent hundreds of years on researching the outer space. There’s still more to discover about the space. The researchers keep observing the brightest stars and darkest black holes all the time.
Recently, while updating the census of black holes, the researchers came across a new discovery. The researchers believe that they have discovered a new class of black holes—smaller than the previously known class—in our galaxy. The findings were published as a research paper in the journal, Science.
When Stars die, they collapse so strongly that the resultant explosion creates a stronger gravitational whirls through which even light is unable to escape. They are generally detected at the center of our galaxy and conduct themselves as a super-massive engine. This phenomenon is dubbed as formation of black holes. The dead stars who don’t explode after caving themselves in, form small and dense neuron stars.
While researching on the basis of Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) data, the researchers came across a red star orbiting the smallest black hole. This black hole weights 3.3 times —previous smaller one weighted for 3.8 times— mass of the Sun. The researchers have, thus, found a new way to discover more black holes.
According to Todd Thompson—lead author and astronomy professor, Ohio State University—though studying star evolution and formation of black hole are important phenomena to study, mostly the researchers focus on evolution of neutron stars rather than black holes. Currently, people are more curious about supernova, black holes explosion and element formation in super-massive stars, as well. So focusing on studying new black holes’ population may result in opening up a new study field, a field where the stars will be researched with aims to categorize dead stars into explosive and non-explosive stars as well as neuron stars-productive and black holes-productive stars.