Astronomers from the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the discovery of the largest black hole in the Milky Way. The black hole BH3 is located near the constellation Aquila and is more than 1926 light-years from Earth, making it 33 times more massive than the Sun. The discovery was made by the Gaia space telescope launched by ESA in 2013 to photograph billions of stars.
Scientists detect movement in a star in the constellation Aquila that suggests a black hole is nearby. Then with the help of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) located in Chile, the existence of BH3 was confirmed along with its size.
In addition to BH3, the Gai telescope also detected two other black holes in the Milky Way. The black hole BH1 was found in the constellation Ophiuchus which is located 1560 light years from Earth. Meanwhile, the BH2 black hole is in the Centaurus constellation which is located 3800 light years from Earth.
There are believed to be over 100 million black holes in the Milky Way. Although they exist in large numbers, black holes are difficult to detect because they absorb light that allows them to be seen with the naked eye.