A gigantic stellar black hole 15,000 light-years from Earth is twice as massive as what researchers thought was possible in our own galaxy.
The black hole is 70 times more massive than the sun, the scientists wrote in a new study. Previously, scientists thought the mass of a stellar black hole, formed from the gravitational collapse of massive stars, couldn’t exceed 30 times that of the sun.
“We thought that very massive stars with the chemical composition typical of our galaxy must shed most of their gas in powerful stellar winds as they approach the end of their life,” lead study author Jifeng Liu, deputy director-general of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ National Astronomical Observatories, said in a statement. “Therefore, they should not leave behind such a massive remnant.”