A way to find ‘quiet’ black holes finally bears fruit

Theorists estimate there may be 100 million star-size black holes lurking in the Milky Way, but astronomers have no way of knowing for sure: Only a couple dozen have been discovered, by the x-rays they emit as they swallow material from a companion star. Now, researchers say they have discovered a quiet black hole—one that isn’t putting on a show—through the wobble it exerts on a companion star.

When a visible star is tugged by the gravity of an unseen companion, the motion to and from Earth stretches and scrunches the light. By looking for these periodic shifts in the star’s spectrum, astronomers can determine the mass of whatever is causing the wobble. This “radial velocity” technique has already been used to detect dozens of exoplanets with hundreds more awaiting confirmation. “It’s not necessarily difficult to find radial velocities,” Shenar says.

Over the past several years, the team has used the technique to refute other recent black hole discovery claims. Both LB-1, a supposed monster black hole of 70 solar masses, and HR 6819, a claimed, are probably not real, Shenar says. He says all the proposed black hole radial velocity sightings of recent years now have papers casting doubt on them, debunked by his team or others.

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