Astronomers have discovered, for the first time, a dormant black hole nine times the mass of the sun outside the Milky Way. The research report was published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The researchers searched the black hole binary system for more than two years before discovering the dormant black hole known as VFTS 243. VFTS 243 orbits a hot blue star 25 times the mass of the Sun. Black holes are usually formed by the collapse of stars over 15 solar masses, but VFTS 243 is unusual in that it collapsed without ejecting material, and no trace of a supernova was observed. University of Sheffield astrophysics professor Paul Crowther believes this confirms the possibility of what he calls a “direct-collapse scenario”.
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