Gaia BH3

Common card · No. 481731

Gaia BH3 (Gaia DR3 4318465066420528000) is a binary system consisting of a metal-poor giant star with spectral type G and a stellar-mass black hole. Gaia BH3 is located 1926 light years away (590.6±5.8 pc away) in the constellation of Aquila. Gaia BH3 is the first black hole discovered from preliminary Gaia DR4 astrometric data. The black hole and star orbit the system barycentre every 11.6 years, with an orbital distance ranging from 4.5–29 AU. The black hole's mass is 32.70 M☉, the most massive known stellar black hole in the Milky Way. The black hole Gaia BH3 is the second known stellar black hole more massive than about 10 M☉ (with the first being Cygnus X-1). The mass of Gaia BH3 is quite similar to the mass of merging binary black holes found via gravitational waves. These massive black holes were suspected to be formed by metal-poor stars and the fact that Gaia BH3 has a metal-poor companion strengthens this conclusion. Gaia BH3 was found to be part of a disrupted star cluster of...

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