A black hole is an object so compact that nothing can escape its gravitational pull. Not even light. On Earth an object needs to be launched with a speed of 11 km/s if it is to escape the planet's gravity and go into orbit. But the escape velocity of a black hole exceeds the speed of light. Since nothing can travel faster than this ultimate speed, black holes suck in everything including light, which makes them utterly dark and invisible. In this image, we can see a black hole, but only because it is surrounded by a superheated disc of material, an accretion disc. The closer to the hole the material gets, the more and more of its light is captured, which is why the hole grows darker towards its cente.

Scientists find a hidden black hole using new detection method

Researchers have discovered a strange black hole-star pair, a finding that could open our eyes to millions of new black holes that, until now, have been hidden in the cosmos.

For years, scientists have assumed that there are millions of black holes in our galaxy. However, researchers can often only spot black holes that are in binary pairs with stars in which the black hole orbits and siphons matter from the star. This is because, when black holes accrete matter from their partner star, they emit bright, easy-to-spot X-rays.

But many black holes in these pairings don’t orbit their star close enough to accrete mass and emit this bright signal, so they go undetected.

However, in a new study, scientists demonstrated how dimmer black holes can be spotted in the night sky.

Read more at Space.com

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