An international team of astronomers has discovered an exotic object GW190814, which mass is intermediate between black holes and neutron stars. This was reported in an article published in The Astrophysical Journal.
14 Dec 2019, the researchers recorded the LIGO collaboration, gravitational waves that were emitted by merging black holes 22-24 of the masses of the Sun and an unknown celestial body, whose mass reaches 2.5 and 2.6 the mass of the Sun. The source of the waves was located at a distance from 652 million light years to 932 million light years. The second object is either the lightest black hole, or the heaviest neutron star.
According to scientists, such events that belong to the new class mergers, to occur every year in the amount of space 1-23 cubic gigaparsec (one parsec is equal to 2.2 light-years). Astrophysical models predict that the binary system to have a similar ratio of masses of objects, may arise in several ways, but hardly formed in globular clusters. However, the mass of the objects and the frequency of mergers put into question all modern models of formation of such systems in dense stellar environments.
Scientists suggest that the second object is likely a black hole, but can not completely exclude the possibility that it is a neutron star. Astronomers believe that the discovery will help better understand the processes leading to the emergence of compact celestial bodies, and in the near future will be discovered more such events.
