Scientists have discovered hints of the existence of several black holes in the Hyades cluster – the closest open cluster to our solar system – making them the closest black holes to Earth ever discovered.
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This was reported by the press service of the University of Barcelona (Spain).
Scientists came to this conclusion by conducting simulations tracking the movement and evolution of all the stars in the Hyades. In this simulation, they used data collected by scientists since 2015 on the merger of pairs of low-mass black holes, accompanied by the emergence of gravitational waves.
The Hyades are located about 150 light years (or 45 parsecs) from the Sun. In recent years, the use of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia space telescope has made it possible for the first time to study in detail the positions and velocities of stars in this open cluster and confidently identify individual stars.
Open clusters are loosely connected groups of hundreds of stars that have certain properties, such as age and chemical characteristics. The simulation results were compared with the actual positions and speeds of stars in the Hyades.
Our simulation can simultaneously match the mass and size of the Hyades only if some black holes are present at the center of the cluster today (or until recently), the researchers note.
The simulation results showed:
- the observed properties of the Hyades are better reproduced by simulations with two or three black holes at this time;
- at the same time, simulations that assume that all black holes were ejected (less than 150 million years ago—roughly the last quarter of the cluster’s age) may also provide a good match, since cluster evolution has not yet been able to erase traces of the black hole’s previous existence.
The new results show that the black holes produced by the Hyades are still inside or very close to the cluster. This makes them the closest black holes to the Sun, much closer than the previous candidate (namely the black hole Gaia BH1, located 480 parsecs from the Sun), the researchers note.
#RecercaUB | ✨ Investigadores de la UB identifican varios agujeros negros que podrían ser los más próximos a la Tierra nunca detectados.
�️ El análisis se ha hecho con datos del satélite @ESAGaia y los agujeros negros se localizarían al cúmul estelar de les Hiades.
� Participen en la… pic.twitter.com/2gmvKCUyP8
– Universidad de Barcelona (@UniBarcelona) September 8, 2023
The first photograph of a black hole was presented by a collaboration of scientists (VIDEO)
Source: Racurs
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