Meet the Milky Way’s largest stellar black hole ⚫

Mark your calendars for the next total solar eclipse

The countdown for the next solar eclipse in the United States has already begun ⏳

Simply stay tuned until the 2040s, when two total solar eclipses will reach the lower 48 states:

🌚 On August 23, 2044, the path of totality will briefly appear in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. 

Most of this eclipse will be in Canada and Greenland, but don’t worry…

🌚 On August 12, 2045, the “Greatest American Eclipse” will stretch across California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and small slivers of Missouri and Texas. 

The sites with some of the longest stretches of totality are:

🌝 Port Saint Lucie, Florida (6 minutes and 4 seconds)

🐭 Orlando, Florida (6 minutes and 2 seconds)

🌝 Kissimmee Prairie State Park, Florida (5 minutes and 56 seconds)

🌝 Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (5 minutes and 10 seconds)

🌝 Arches National Park, Utah (4 minutes and 15 seconds)

If we learned anything from this past eclipse, the time to start planning is … now!

Meet the Milky Way’s biggest stellar black hole

When astronomers were digging through old data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope, they didn’t expect to stumble across the biggest stellar black hole we’ve ever encountered in the Milky Way. 

But that’s exactly what happened 👏

⚪️ Like other dormant black holes, this ‘sleeping giant’ doesn’t generate any light and isn’t close enough to nearby stars to noticeably exchange matter. AKA, it’s good at hiding. 

⚪️ However, it did cause an ancient star in the Aquila constellation to wobble. The movement was big enough that researchers finally noticed its orbital dance. 

⚪️ Now named Gaia BH3, the black hole’s mass is 33 times larger than our sun’s and the second-closest black hole to Earth (that we know about).

⚪️ A stellar black hole are ones that form from the gravitational collapse of massive stars

 ⚪️ Sagittarius A* is still the largest black hole by far, with it being 4.1M times bigger than the Sun

In addition to its record-breaking size, Gaia BH3’s formation offers evidence that metal-poor stars are more likely to create high-mass black holes when they collapse. 

Let’s give Gaia BH3 a warm welcome to the neighborhood!

It’s raining! Debris from the International Space Station

Next time you dump 5,800 lbs of hardware into the Earth’s orbit, make sure all of it will actually burn up in the atmosphere 🎇

The team at the International Space Station learned this lesson the hard way last month when a piece of metal alloy crashed through a home in Naples, Florida. 

 ☄️ Though just 4-inch x 1.6-inch and 1.6 lbs, the object smashed through two layers of ceiling with a blast of “tremendous sound.”

☄️ The rogue debris didn’t cause any injuries, but homeowner Alejandro Otero and his son were just two rooms away from the impact.

☄️ NASA told the press that the debris was released after the station swapped the hardware for lithium-ion batteries. 

According to the agency:

"The hardware was expected to fully burn up during entry through Earth's atmosphere on March 8, 2024. However, a piece of hardware survived and impacted a home in Naples, Florida." 

If you’re having a bad week, remember that at least you weren’t hit by a 4-inch wide piece of killer space junk ☀️

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