Biggest stellar-mass black hole discovered
An international team of scientists led by China has discovered a king-size stellar-mass black hole in our "cosmic backyard" containing the mass of 70 suns. It is the biggest known of its kind and roughly three times bigger than what scientists previously thought was possible, researchers said on Thursday.
The discovery challenged astronomers' understanding of the formation models for black holes of its class, and provided a new way to find similar black holes in our own Milky Way Galaxy that may lead to new theories for black hole astrophysics and stellar evolution.
The black hole, named LB-1, was found slowly devouring gas from a star more than 13,800 light-years from Earth - relatively nearby, considering the estimated 105,700 light-year diameter of our home galaxy.
