The discovery of the largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way, weighing in at 33 times the mass of the sun, is a significant milestone in astrophysics.
Black holes of this size can provide researchers with valuable insights into the processes of stellar evolution and black hole formation.
This discovery is significant because it challenges previous models and understanding of black hole formation and the dynamics of binary systems.
It provides new insights into the life cycles of stars and the end states of massive stars in binary systems.
The black hole is part of a binary system and is in orbit with a Sun-like star. The discovery was made using observations from the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite, which detected the motion of the star around the black hole,
allowing researchers to infer the presence of the massive black hole.
This black hole is located in a system known as Gaia BH1, which is about 1,560 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus.
With a mass 33 times that of the sun, this black hole is larger than most other known stellar black holes.