Featured Image Credit: NASA / Universal History Archive/Contributor/Getty
The first-ever 'triple black hole' has been discovered by astronomers, and the so-called 'happy accident' has left them stunned.
Discoveries are common in space, and it often take accidents to unveil some of the most fascinating new information.
Remnants of ancient water has been found on Mars, and scientists have even recently spotted parts of the Sun 'breaking off' - but few intergalactic elements are perhaps as simultaneously terrifying and fascinating as a black hole.
NASA themselves have released a eerie simulation of what it would be like to be swallowed by a supermassive black hole, but that perhaps pales in comparison to the sheer scale of what has now been discovered.
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Over 8,000 light-years away (equal to roughly 5.88 trillion miles) you can find the V404 Cygni system, and within this astronomers have located the first-ever triple black hole - yes, triple.
It is understood that this phenomenon features a black hole 'hungrily feeding' on a nearby star, all while another star also rotates within its orbit in the distance.
What remains special about this discovery is indeed its 'triple' nature, as most black holes erupt with a violent explosion that typically flings distant nearby stars away.
However, it is understood that this particular black hole was formed with what is being called a 'direct collapse', as reported by Space, which avoided the 'pre-natal kick' that would have typically propelled the third, distant star far away from the event.
NASA have been aware of the system and the black hole for a number of years now, and have conducted numerous investigations into it, but it was only recently when an investigation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), led by Kevin Burdge, unveiled that there was indeed another star in the mix.
Burdge, when speaking to Space, revealed: "This system is super exciting for black hole evolution, and it also raises questions of whether there are more triples out there.
"Overall, it's not surprising that black holes should be in triples because a large fraction of massive stars are in triples, but what's surprising is that this system held onto the triple after forming the black hole."
This could lead to a revolution in the analysis and research of black holes, and we could indeed find out that more triples were hiding in plain sight due to the now-incorrect presumption that they couldn't exist.
What remains fascinating about Burdge and MIT's research, though, is that it was all simply an accident. They didn't go out looking for the third star, and instead Burdge explains that he found the discovery by simply looking at a picture.
Who knows what other revelations are right underneath our noses, and all it might take is a keen eye to spot what nobody else has managed to so far.
