Cosmic Pioneers Discover Record-Breaking Black Hole in the Milky Way

Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery of the largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way galaxy, with a mass 33 times that of the Sun. The black hole, named Gaia BH3, was found by chance using data collected by the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission.

The mission, dedicated to mapping the Milky Way galaxy and located 2,000 light years away from Earth in the Aquila constellation, uses a telescope to pinpoint the position of stars in the sky. This allowed astronomers to measure the mass of an invisible companion of a star – which turned out to be 33 times the mass of the Sun.

Further observations from ground-based telescopes confirmed that Gaia BH3 was indeed a black hole with a mass far greater than other stellar black holes in the Milky Way. The discovery was described as a once-in-a-lifetime find by Pasquale Panuzzo, an astronomer from the National Centre for Scientific Research.

Stellar black holes are formed when massive stars collapse at their end of life and are smaller than supermassive black holes. This marks the first time that an inactive black hole has been detected in the Milky Way. Additionally, Gaia also identified two more inactive black holes in