New observations of the first black hole ever detected have led astronomers to question what they know about the Universe\u2019s most mysterious objects.<\/p>\n
Published today in the journal Science<\/em>, the research shows the system known as Cygnus X-1 contains the most massive stellar-mass black hole ever detected without the use of gravitational waves.<\/p>\n Cygnus X-1 is one of the closest black holes to Earth. It was discovered in 1964 when a pair of Geiger counters were carried on board a sub-orbital rocket launched from New Mexico.<\/p>\n The object was the focus of a famous scientific wager between physicists Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne, with Hawking betting in 1974 that it was not a black hole. Hawking conceded the bet in 1990.<\/p>\n In this latest work, an international team of astronomers used the Very Long Baseline Array\u2014a continent-sized radio telescope made up of 10 dishes spread across the United States\u2014together with a clever technique to measure distances in space.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can view the same object from different locations, we can calculate its distance away from us by measuring how far the object appears to move relative to the background,\u201d said lead researcher, Professor James Miller-Jones from Curtin University and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).<\/p>\n \u201cIf you hold your finger out in front of your eyes and view it with one eye at a time, you\u2019ll notice your finger appears to jump from one spot to another. It\u2019s exactly the same principle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOver six days we observed a full orbit of the black hole and used observations taken of the same system with the same telescope array in 2011,\u201d Professor Miller-Jones said. \u201cThis method and our new measurements show the system is further away than previously thought, with a black hole that\u2019s significantly more massive.\u201d<\/p>\n Co-author Professor Ilya Mandel from Monash University and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) said the black hole is so massive it\u2019s actually challenging how astronomers thought they formed.<\/p>\n \u201cStars lose mass to their surrounding environment through stellar winds that blow away from their surface. But to make a black hole this heavy, we need to dial down the amount of mass that bright stars lose during their lifetimes\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe black hole in the Cygnus X-1 system began life as a star approximately 60 times the mass of the Sun and collapsed tens of thousands of years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cIncredibly, it\u2019s orbiting its companion star\u2014a supergiant\u2014every five and a half days at just one-fifth of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.<\/p>\n \u201cThese new observations tell us the black hole is more than 20 times the mass of our Sun\u2014a 50 per cent increase on previous estimates.\u201d<\/p>\n Xueshan Zhao is a co-author on the paper and a PhD candidate studying at the National Astronomical Observatories\u2014part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) in Beijing.<\/p>\n \u201cUsing the updated measurements for the black hole\u2019s mass and its distance away from Earth, I was able to confirm that Cygnus X-1 is spinning incredibly quickly\u2014very close to the speed of light and faster than any other black hole found to date,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m at the beginning of my research career, so being a part of an international team and helping to refine the properties of the first black hole ever discovered has been a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Next year, the world\u2019s biggest radio telescope\u2014the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)\u2014will begin construction in Australia and South Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cStudying black holes is like shining a light on the Universe\u2019s best kept secret\u2014it\u2019s a challenging but exciting area of research,\u201d Professor Miller-Jones said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the next generation of telescopes comes online, their improved sensitivity reveals the Universe in increasingly more detail, leveraging decades of effort invested by scientists and research teams around the world to better understand the cosmos and the exotic and extreme objects that exist.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a great time to be an astronomer.\u201d<\/p>\n Accompanying the publication in Science<\/em>, two further papers focusing on different aspects of this work have also been published today in The Astrophysical Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New observations of the first black hole ever detected have led astronomers to question what they know about the Universe\u2019s most mysterious 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