There is always something new and exciting happening in the field of black hole research.
Albert Einstein first published his book explainingthe theory of general relativity which postulated black holes in 1922.
One hundred years later, astronomers captured actualimages of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
I am an astrophysicistwho has studied black holes the most dense objects in the universe for nearly two decades.
Dormant black holes are black holes that do not emit any detectable light.
Thus, they are notoriously difficult to find.
This video begins with a view of the Milky Way and zooms all the way to VFTS 243, which is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
This new discovery is exciting because it provides insight into the formation and evolution of black holes.
This information is vital for understandinggravitational wavesas well as other astronomical events.
What exactly is VFTS 243?
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The black hole in VFTS 243 is considered dormant because it is not emitting any detectable radiation.
This is in stark contrast to other binary systems in whichstrong X-rays are detectedfrom the black hole.
Both rapidly rotate around a common center of mass.
Even with the most powerful telescopes, visually the system is acting like a single blue dot.
Feeding produces a disk of gas and dust that surrounds the black hole.
These hot disks of matter emit a tremendous amount of X-rays.
The first black hole to be detected in this manner is the famedCygnus X-1 system.
On the left is an optical image showing Cygnus X-1 outlined by a red box.
To determine which was true, the team studying the binary used a technique calledspectral disentangling.
This analysis revealed that the light from VFTS 243 wasfrom a single source, not two separate stars.
Notice that there is no accretion disk present.ESO/L.
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Why is VFTS 243 important?
When this happens, often there is atremendous explosion known as a supernova.
Instead, looks like the progenitor starcollapsed directlyto form the black hole sans explosion.
To date, astronomers have detected nearly 100 events where binary black holes merge andproduced ripples in space-time.
