There May Be 170 Million Black Holes Lurking in the Milky Way's Graveyard

A team led by Tom Wagg used Milky Way simulations to estimate the number, distribution, and origins of stellar-mass black holes.

They found the galaxy may contain about 170 million hidden stellar-mass black holes, many displaced from their birthplaces by supernova kicks.

The study provides the first broad map of the Milky Way’s unseen black hole population and could guide future observations and test stellar evolution and supernova models.