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Science & Tech.
Mahesh

26/04/21 09:40 AM IST

Unicorn- Smallest black hole in the Milky Way Galaxy

In News 

  • Scientists have discovered what may be the smallest-known black hole in the Milky Way galaxy and the closest to our solar system — an object so curious that they nicknamed it 'the Unicorn.'

Details 
  • We nicknamed this black hole 'the Unicorn' partly because V723 Mon is in the Monoceros constellation — which translates to unicorn — and partly because it is a very unique system" in terms of the black hole's mass and relative closeness to Earth.
  • The researchers said the black hole is roughly three times the mass of our sun, testing the lower limits of size for these extraordinarily dense objects that possess gravitational pulls so strong not even light can escape.
  • A luminous star called a red giant orbits with the black hole in a so-called binary star system named V723 Mon.
  • The black hole is located about 1,500 light years — the distance light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion km — from Earth.
  • While it may be the closest one to us, it is still far away.
  • By way of comparison, the closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is 4 light years away.
  • Its strong gravity alters the shape of its companion star in a phenomenon known as tidal distortion, making it elongated rather than spherical and causing its light to change as it moves along its orbital path. 


About Black Hole 
  • Black holes are extremely dense points in space that create deep gravity sinks from which even light cannot escape.
  • It can be formed by a death of a massive star.
  • A black hole takes up zero space but does have mass, that used to be a star. And black holes get more massive as they consume matter near them.
  • There are three categories of black holes:
  • The smallest, like 'the Unicorn,' are so-called stellar mass black holes formed by the gravitational collapse of a single star.
  • There are gargantuan 'supermassive' black holes like the one at our galaxy's center, 26,000 light years from Earth, which is four million times the sun's mass.
  • A few intermediate-mass black holes also have been found with masses somewhere in between.

Source- The Hindu

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