Unearthing the Enigmatic: The Revelation of Gaia BH3, the Largest Stellar Black Hole in the Milky Way

Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery of the largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way, with a mass 33 times that of the Sun. This discovery was made by chance using data collected by the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which is dedicated to mapping the Milky Way galaxy and is located 2,000 light years away from Earth in the Aquila constellation.

Using Gaia’s telescope, astronomers were able to pinpoint the position of stars in the sky and measure the mass of an invisible companion star. Further observations from ground-based telescopes confirmed that this star was actually a black hole with a mass far greater than other stellar black holes in the Milky Way.

This discovery was unexpected as it was previously unknown that a high-mass black hole was nearby and undetected. This finding was described as a once-in-a-lifetime discovery by Pasquale Panuzzo, an astronomer from the National Centre for Scientific Research.

Stellar black holes are formed from the collapse of massive stars at the end of their lives and are smaller than supermassive black holes. The discovery of Gaia BH3 marks the first time that an inactive black hole has been detected in the Milky Way. Gaia also identified two other inactive black holes in