Scientists have asked volunteers to look for black holes in the Milky Way

Astronomers from the University of Southampton urged volunteers to help find the “missing” black holes of the Milky Way in data from the TESS space telescope, reports “Science Mail”. Anyone can participate in the Black Hole Hunters project with a computer and Internet access.

According to scientists, over 13 billion years of history, the Milky Way should have produced more than 10 million black holes, but only about 70 such objects were found.

“You will help determine where exactly we need to point the telescopes,” said one of the project leaders, astronomer Adam McMaster. According to him, the task is simple and does not require special knowledge.

Black holes are invisible, and they can be detected only by the influence on the surrounding objects. Massive stars are often born in pairs, and if one of them explodes as a supernova and leaves a black hole, the pair can continue to orbit around a common center. When such a hole passes between a companion star and Earth, its gravity acts as a magnifying glass and briefly enhances the star's luster. Such flares are able to fix TESS, whose main task is to search for planets.

According to the “Science Mail”, almost 23 thousand volunteers have already completed more than 12 million classifications.

In late August, astronomers discovered the fastest known star in the Milky Way. It revolves around a supermassive black hole. It is this star that can become a bridge for scientists to measure the rotation speed of a black hole and test Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Two months earlier, James Webb had found the most distant dormant black hole. Its mass is billions of times that of the Sun.