A recent study found that the first black hole ever discovered was much larger than scientists first thought.
Black holes are extremely massive space objects whose gravity is so powerful that not even light escapes. The black hole, Cygnus X-1, was discovered in 1964. It is known as the object of a friendly bet between two well-known scientists.
Researchers have found that new observations of Cygnus X-1 show that it is 21 times the mass of our Sun. This is about 50 percent more massive than scientists believed.
Although it is still one of the closest black holes known, scientists have found it to be further away than previously estimated. It’s 7,200 light – years away. A light year is the distance the light travels in one year.
Some black holes, such as the middle in the Milky Way, are very large. These are called ‘supermassive’ black holes. It can be millions of times more massive than the sun. Smaller black holes are called black “holes”. They have the mass of a single star.
Cygnus X-1 is the largest known black hole of the Milky Way. This is one of the strongest X-rays sources seen from Earth, said James Miller-Jones of Curtin University and the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research in Australia. Miller-Jones led the study that appeared in the publication Science.
Cygnus X-1 rotates so fast that it comes close to the highest rate predicted by physicist Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, Miller-Jones added.
The black hole brings in material coming from the surface of the star orbiting it. This star is a ‘blue supergiant’, a very large star about 40 times our solar mass.
Cygnus X-1 began to exist 4 million to 5 million years ago as a star up to 75 times more massive than the sun. But then it crashed into a black hole a few tens of thousands of years ago.
The research included data from the Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope. It consists of ten observation stations in the United States.
After Cygnus X-1 was first identified as a possible black hole, a friendly bet was made between two physicists, Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne. Hawking bets that the object is a black hole, while Thorne bets that it is one. Hawking eventually admitted that the evidence suggests that Cygnus X-1 was a black hole.
Miller-Jones, the leader of the recent study, said: “I did not place any bets on these findings.
I’m John Russell.
Will Dunham told Reuters about this story. John Russell adapted it to learn English. Mario Ritter, Jr., was the editor. _______________________________________________________________
Words in this story
bet – n. an agreement in which people try to guess what is going to happen and the person who guesses wrong must give something (such as money) to the person who guesses correctly; a bet
source – n. the place where something starts
bet – n. an agreement in which people try to guess what is going to happen and the person who guesses wrong must give something (such as money) to the person who guesses correctly; a bet