Tag Archive for 'Gaia BH1'

Black holes are the sources of the strongest gravitational fields that can be found today in the Universe and are ideal laboratories for testing Einstein’s theory of general relativity in the strong field regime. In his article, Professor Bambi shows that the possibility of an interstellar mission to send a small spacecraft to the nearest black hole, although very speculative and extremely challenging, is not completely unrealistic. Image credit: Cosimo Bambi, doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113142.

Astrophysicist Proposes Interstellar Mission to Study Black Holes

Aug 11, 2025 by News Staff

In a new paper published in the journal iScience, an astrophysicist from Fudan University discusses the possibility of sending a nanocraft to a black hole...

The location of Gaia BH2 and Gaia BH1 in the Milky Way. This map of our Galaxy was also made by the Gaia mission. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Gaia Discovers Its Second Black Hole

Apr 4, 2023 by News Staff

The newly-discovered dormant black hole, named Gaia BH2, is orbited by a red giant star, and has a mass of 8.9 solar masses. The location of Gaia BH2 and...

An artist’s concept of the Gaia BH1 binary system. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / Spaceengine / M. Zamani.

Dormant Stellar-Mass Black Hole Detected 1,600 Light-Years Away

Nov 4, 2022 by News Staff

Gaia BH1 has a mass of 9.62 times the mass of the Sun and is orbited by a bright Sun-like star at about the same distance as our planet orbits the Sun....