The first black hole found was twice as large as scientists thought

A new study shows that the Cygnus X-1 system has a massive black hole found without using

gravitational waves. This is one of the closest black holes to Earth, which was discovered in  1964, when a pair of Geiger counters were carried aboard a suborbital rocket. 

In their latest work, an international groupAstronomers used a long base array - this radio telescope is literally the size of a continent: it consists of ten dishes scattered throughout the United States. 

If we can observe the same object from different places, then we can calculate its distance from us. 

James Miller-Jones of Curtin University and the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)         

Observations have shown that the Cygnus X-1 systemis 20% further away than previously thought, and the black hole is 21 times the mass of the Sun, making it the most massive black hole discovered without the use of gravitational waves. 

Study co-author, Professor Ilya Mandel fromMonash University and the ARC Center of Excellence for the Discovery of Gravitational Waves (OzGrav) said the black hole is very massive, so it is difficult to understand how astronomers think it formed.

New measurements show the black hole to be twice the size of previous estimates. 

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