Waspie_Dwarf Posted March 30 #1 Share Posted March 30 (IP: Staff) · Gaia discovers a new family of black holes Quote ESA’s Gaia mission has helped discover a new kind of black hole. The new family already has two members, and both are closer to Earth than any other black hole that we know of. A team of astronomers studied the orbits of stars tracked by Gaia and noticed that some of them wobbled on the sky, as if they were gravitationally influenced by massive objects. Several telescopes looked for the objects, but no light could be found, leaving only one possibility: black holes. Read More: ESA 1 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khol Posted March 30 #2 Share Posted March 30 "There are a lot of particles coming off the companion star in the form of stellar wind. But because we didn't see any radio light, that tells us the black hole isn't a great eater and not many particles are crossing its event horizon. We don’t know why that is, but we want to find out!” So the star itself is influenced by the gravity well created by the black hole, but its particles are not? what am I missing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted March 30 Author #3 Share Posted March 30 (IP: Staff) · 5 minutes ago, khol said: So the star itself is influenced by the gravity well created by the black hole, but its particles are not? It doesn't say that the particles are not influenced by the gravity well, it says that they are not crossing the black hole's event horizon. It is a myth that black holes suck in everything. The gravitational well they produce is no larger than that of a star of similar mass. However, because of their density there is a region around the black hole where the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light, this is the event horizon. Escape from within the event horizon is impossible. The article is not saying that particles are not affected by the black hole's gravity, merely that not many particles are approaching the event horizon. 1 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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