Black Hole Found in Binary Star System: More Than Five Times Greater in Mass Than Our Sun

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) have discovered the existence of a black hole 5.4 times greater in mass than that of our Sun, located in the X-ray binary system XTE J1859+226. The observations carried out from the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), managing to obtain the first spectroscopic data from this binary system to be published, have been determinant for the discovery.

 Visual representation of a binary system similar to XTE J1859+226, where there can be observed the star,
the stream of matter leading towards the black hole, and the disc that forms around the black hole. (Credit: Jesús Corral Santana (IAC))