Gaia black holes

The location of the first three black holes discovered by ESA’s Gaia mission in the Milky Way. This map of our galaxy was also made by the Gaia mission. Gaia Black Hole 1 (BH1) is located just 1560 light-years away from us in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus; Gaia BH2 is 3800 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus; Gaia BH3 is in the constellation Aquila, at a distance of 1926 light-years from Earth. In galactic terms, these black holes reside in our cosmic backyard.

With a mass of about 33 times that of the Sun, BH3 is the heaviest black hole of stellar origin discovered in our galaxy.

[Image description: A large oval fills the rectangular black-background image. The oval represents a projection of our galaxy. Millions of tiny white dots fill the overall dark oval; a bright white-yellowish band crosses the oval horizontally. Black filaments rise towards the top and the bottom of the image from the bright central band. Three pin-shaped arrows points towards different spots in the band and signpost the position of BH1, BH2 and BH3. They are coloured red, blue, and yellow, respectively.]

Read more