Astronomy

A black hole 33 times the mass of the sun is the largest stellar black hole ever spotted, and its strange companion star could help explain how it got so huge

After being packed up in Germany, a long voyage to the US and then a month in storage, ESA’s EarthCARE satellite has been carefully lifted out of its transport container so that the team at the launch site can start getting it ready for its big day in May.

Wading through the wealth of data from ESA’s Gaia mission, scientists have uncovered a ‘sleeping giant’. A large black hole, with a mass of nearly 33 times the mass of the Sun, was hiding in the constellation Aquila, less than 2000 light-years from Earth. This is the first time a black hole of stellar origin this big has been spotted within the Milky Way. So far, black holes of this type have only been observed in very distant galaxies. The discovery challenges our understanding of how massive stars develop and evolve. 

Captured in this snapshot, the shadow of the Moon came to Lake Magog,

This spectacular image showing the Moon’s shadow on Earth’s surface was acquired during a 20-second period starting at 2:59 p.m. EDT (18:59:19 UTC) on April 8, 2024, by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Image: Planetary defenders assemble!

ESA accelerates the race towards clean energy from space