AstroUnit

 A new study proposed an interesting and robust test that can be used to infer the origin of solar mass black holes. Solar mass black holes are not expected to form from the conventional stellar evolution but can be produced naturally via neutron star (NS) implosions from the capture of small primordial black holes (PBHs) or from the accumulation of dark matter (DM). The study reports that the mass distribution of such solar-mass BHs would be similar to that of the NSs. This would differ from the mass distribution of black holes in the solar-mass range predicted either by conventional stellar evolution or early universe PBH production.  An artist's impression of IGR J17091-3624: The stellar-mass black hole with the fastest Wind. Source:  Chandra Solar mass black holes should not be confused with stellar-mass black holes. A stellar-mass black hole is a black hole formed by the gravitational collapse of a star. They have masses between 5 to several tens of solar m...

A team of astronomers has discovered a new exoplanet named TOI-824 b orbiting a nearby star TOI-824 which is only 208 light-years away from us. The planet is massive in size with a mass equivalent to almost 19 times that of the Earth and has a radius equal to 3 times that of the Earth. The planet has an orbital period of 1.393 days and has a mean density of roughly 4 gm/cc making it more than twice as dense as Neptune. The discovery was made using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).                        An artist’s impression of an exoplanet. Source:  Alpha Coders As the name suggests, an exoplanet is a planet outside the solar system. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was made in 1992 by astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail. On 6 October 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star. This discovery was groundbreaking and opened...