Astronomers Discover Massive Black Hole That Shouldn’t Exist In Our Galaxy

Space explorations have been radically expanding over time. In a shocking revelation, astronomers have found a black hole in the Milky Way. It's so massive; it shouldn't exist at all as it challenges the existing models of how stars evolve. The black hole LB-1 is said to be 15,000 light-years from the Earth.

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Massive Black Hole Discovered

The Milky Way has approximately 100 million stellar black holes. But the newly discovered black hole LB-1 is so massive it's 70 times greater than the Sun. The LB-1 is believed to be twice as massive as anything seen so far. Scientists say there are two types of black holes. One is the common type of stellar black holes, which are estimated to be up to 20 times bigger than the Sun.

This type of black holes is formed when a star collapses on itself. The second is a type of supermassive black hole, which is at least a million times larger than the Sun. The origin of these black holes is still a mystery.

Massive Black Hole Categorized Differently

The L1-B is one of the larger ones discovered. "Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution," says Liu Jifeng, a National Astronomical Observatory of China professor who led the research. He further states that typical stars in the Milky Way shed most of their gas through stellar winds. This prevents the emergence of a black hole, especially as massive as the LB-1.

Jifeng and other researchers will now try to explain the formation of the massive black hole. The vast number of black holes and their mechanisms on how they're formed are still being researched upon. But it's been agreed upon that stellar black holes are formed after supernova explosions, which occurs when massive stars burn out and die.

But when it comes to the LB-1, the massive size doesn't fall under any scale set so far. Scientists are placing it in the 'pair-instability gap' range, where a supernova couldn't have formed it. It's another physical mechanism altogether, scientists believe.