Astronomers Confirm First Ever Lone Black Hole Roaming the Milky Way

Scientists have confirmed the first known solitary black hole. It’s a rogue, companionless object drifting through our galaxy.

Transcript

00:00scientists have confirmed the first known solitary black hole a rogue companionless object drifting

00:09through space roughly four thousand nine hundred and fifty eight light years from earth the black

00:14hole is estimated to have a mass of seven point one five times that of the sun and is racing to

00:19the cosmos at 32 miles per second what makes the discovery unique is its lack of a companion unlike

00:25most black holes in the milky way which are typically detected due to their gravitational

00:29effects on nearby stars this black hole was identified using gravitational microlensing a

00:34method where its intense gravity bent and magnified the light from a distant background star the object

00:39was first noticed in 2011 with the hubble space telescope collecting data for over 11 years to

00:44confirm its nature a competing 2022 study proposed it might be a neutron star instead but new data and

00:50reanalysis strengthened the black hole identification with researchers writing about it in this new study

00:55our revised analysis with the additional hubble observations and updated photometry included

01:00leads to results that have higher accuracy but are consistent with our previous measurements and

01:05our conclusion that the lens is a stellar mass black hole so is this black hole an anomaly well that's

01:10still unclear however some experts say this suggests there are likely many rogue black holes that may exist

01:16and are currently undetected