Astronomers use ESO instruments to identify massive black hole in Milky Way
Astronomers working at the European southern observatory (ESO) have discovered a massive black hole in a star system within the Milky Way galaxy. The object has 14 times more mass than the Sun, making it the heaviest known stellar black hole in the galaxy. The observation has raised speculation on how stellar black holes of this size form. An international team of astronomers identified the black hole, almost 40,000 light years from Earth, using the ISAAC instrument on the ESO's VLT 8.2-m ANTU telescope. The astronomers also found a low-mass star, known as a 'donor star,' that feeds the black hole by means of a steady flow of stellar material. It was by analysing the movement of this star as it revolves around the black hole that the astronomers were able to estimate the mass of the hole.