Such a huge mass for a disk might indicate that a black hole is present within the disk. The disk is about the size of our solar system, but weighs 1.2 billion times as much as the sun. You then estimate the mass of the black hole by looking at the effect it has on the visible object.įor example, in the core of galaxy NGC 4261, there is a brown, spiral-shaped disk that is rotating. For example, if a visible star or disk of gas has a "wobbling" motion or spinning AND there is not a visible reason for this motion AND the invisible reason has an effect that appears to be caused by an object with a mass greater than three solar masses (too big to be a neutron star), then it is possible that a black hole is causing the motion. What you look for is a star or a disk of gas that is behaving as though there were a large mass nearby. The radius of the event horizon is called the Schwarzschild radius, named after astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, whose work led to the theory of black holes. Once inside the event horizon, all "events" (points in space-time) stop, and nothing (even light) can escape. Once something passes the event horizon, it is gone for good. You can think of the event horizon as the mouth of the black hole. The opening of the hole is called the event horizon. The core becomes the central part of the black hole called the singularity. Because the core's gravity is so strong, the core sinks through the fabric of space-time, creating a hole in space-time - this is why the object is called a black hole. This object is now a black hole and literally disappears from view. The core's gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape. What remains is the highly compressed, and extremely massive,core. As the core compresses, it heats up and eventually creates a supernova explosion in which the material and radiation blasts out into space. At the same time, the star's gravity pulls material inward and compresses the core.
Scientists aren’t sure how such a binary system could even form.As the star dies, the nuclear fusion reactions stop because the fuel for these reactions gets burned up. It’s the most disparate pairing seen thus far. Such a small object colliding with a huge black hole - one weighing in at 24 solar masses - is surprising. That’s not the only thing that’s strange about this reading. And while this newly discovered body ekes in just over the lower end of the spectrum, it’s still baffling. That range - between 2.5 and five solar masses - is called “the mass gap.” It’s never been clear if cosmic objects with a mass in the mass gap could exist. The lightest black hole ever measured has the mass of about five times that of our sun. Physicists claim that neutron stars - the results of giant stars that have gone supernova and then collapsed under their own gravity - can have a mass up to 2.5 times that of the sun. According to a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists aren’t sure if the object was the heaviest neutron star ever detected, or an extremely light black hole. That’s strange, because very few objects with that mass should be able to exist. The readings indicated that an object with a mass 2.6 times that of the sun was gobbled up by a black hole 780 million years ago.
On August 14th, 2019, the International LIGO-Virgo Collaboration - an array of antennas in the US and Italy - detected odd gravitational waves.