Gaia found dormant black holes closer to their stars than physics allows
Future Technology
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Gaia found dormant black holes closer to their stars than physics allows
Three. That is how many dormant black holes ESA's Gaia has found in the Milky Way with a star still orbiting them, and two of those three should not be there at all.
Key Takeaways
- Gaia has found three dormant stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way, each with a surviving companion star
- Gaia BH1 and BH2 hold roughly nine solar mass black holes in orbits too tight for standard stellar evolution
- Roche lobe overflow is the leading explanation for how the companions survived, on a sample size of three
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