While we can’t see black holes with our eyes, astronomers have figured out how to spot these objects in our universe.
One astronomer who is really curious about understanding black holes is my friend Sukanta Bose, a researcher at Washington State University.
“Of course, we cannot see every galaxy,” Bose said. “We see many galaxies that are closer because they are brighter.”
The Sun is a star, but it is far too small to become a black hole. Only heavier stars make black holes. When it comes to stellar mass black holes, astronomers estimate there are ten million to a billion right here in the Milky Way galaxy.
Bose and fellow researchers have been able to spot black holes because of a new way to detect something called gravitational waves. When two black holes collide, they can create a kind of wave that brings information to Earth about its source and helps us learn more about the universe.