Astronomers discover Milky Way’s biggest stellar black hole – 33 times size of sun

Astronomers have discovered an enormous black hole which formed in the aftermath of an exploding star a mere 2,000 light years from Earth.

BH3 is the most massive stellar black hole yet found in the Milky Way and revealed itself to researchers through the powerful tug it exerts on a companion star that orbits the object in the constellation of Aquila, the Eagle.

The serendipitous discovery is so important that scientists released details of the object earlier than planned to enable other astronomers to perform further observations as soon as possible.

As researchers were reviewing the Gaia observations, they noticed a distinct wobble in one of the stars in Aquila, a constellation that is visible in the summer sky in the northern hemisphere.

Further observations from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama desert confirmed BH3’s mass and the star’s orbit, which circles the black hole once every 11.6 years.

Measurements of BH3’s companion star found no sign that it was contaminated with material blasted out from the stellar explosion that formed the black hole.