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'Monster Black Hole' Discovery Was Wrong — But That's How Science Progresses, Scientists Say"

December 12, 2014

'Monster Black Hole' Discovery Was Wrong — But That's How Science Progresses, Scientists Say"

An artist's depiction of the giant binary system LB-1

Todd Thompson, Professor, Vice Chair, Astronomy, "'Monster Black Hole' Discovery Was Wrong — But That's How Science Progresses, Scientists Say," Space.com, Dec. 12

Three teams have analyzed the claim that a black hole 70 times as massive as our sun had been discovered.
 
Apparently, that "monster black hole" that researchers found isn't so monstrous after all. But finding errors and working to correct them in how science pushes forward.
 
In a recent study (a peer-reviewed study published Nov. 27), a team of scientists reported the discovery of the binary system LB-1, which contains a star and, according to the findings, a black hole companion 70 times the mass of our sun. This was major news, a stellar-mass black holes (black holes formed by the gravitational collapse of a star) are typically less than half that massive. But while the study, led by Jifeng Liu, of the National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was exciting, it was also wrong.