Unicorn … Small Black Hole Discovered near Earth

This artist rendering provided by NASA shows a star being swallowed by a black hole, and emitting an X-ray flare, shown in red, in the process. (NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory/M.Weiss via AP/File)
This artist rendering provided by NASA shows a star being swallowed by a black hole, and emitting an X-ray flare, shown in red, in the process. (NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory/M.Weiss via AP/File)
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Unicorn … Small Black Hole Discovered near Earth

This artist rendering provided by NASA shows a star being swallowed by a black hole, and emitting an X-ray flare, shown in red, in the process. (NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory/M.Weiss via AP/File)
This artist rendering provided by NASA shows a star being swallowed by a black hole, and emitting an X-ray flare, shown in red, in the process. (NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory/M.Weiss via AP/File)

Since a research team released the image of a newly discovered black hole on April 10, 2019, the study of this cosmic body gained much momentum, as it is the smallest black hole on record, and the closest to our planet.

Black holes are characterized with great gravity that nothing, not even particles or electromagnetic radiation like light, can escape. They usually have huge masses, larger than that of the sun. The newest discovery in this field is a black hole called "Unicorn," and it was announced on April 18, in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The researchers named it "Unicorn" because of its unique size, and because it was found in Monoceros, a relatively dim constellation that exists to the east of the Orion constellation, and to the north of Sirius star in the constellation Canis Major.

Astronomers at the Ohio State University discovered the new black hole while examining a giant star in the constellation Monoceros, using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT).

They noticed that the star's light intensity and shape shift in different spots around the orbit, suggesting that another object is tugging on the star and changing its shape. The team believed the object is likely a black hole, and estimated it is a small one.

Although the mass of some black holes is millions of times larger than the sun's, the team estimates that the mass of Unicorn is only three times that of our sun. This indicates that the newly discovered black hole is smaller than the usually discovered ones. Few black holes with such small mass had been found in the universe. Lying a mere 1,500 light-years from us, Unicorn is considered close to the Earth.



Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

 Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

 Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo

African elephants are Earth's largest land animals, remarkable mammals that are very intelligent and highly social. They also are in peril. Fresh evidence of this comes in a study that documents alarming population declines at numerous sites across the continent over about a half century.

Researchers unveiled on Monday what they called the most comprehensive assessment of the status of the two African elephant species - the savanna elephant and forest elephant - using data on population surveys conducted at 475 sites in 37 countries from 1964 through 2016.

The savanna elephant populations fell by about 70% on average at the surveyed sites and the forest elephant populations dropped by about 90% on average at the surveyed sites, with poaching and habitat loss the main drivers. All told, there was a 77% population decrease on average at the various surveyed sites, spanning both species, Reuters reported.

Elephants vanished at some sites while their populations increased in other places thanks to conservation efforts.

"A lot of the lost populations won't come back, and many low-density populations face continued pressures. We likely will lose more populations going forward," said George Wittemyer, a Colorado State University professor of wildlife conservation and chair of the scientific board of the conservation group Save the Elephants, who helped lead the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Poaching typically involves people killing elephants for their tusks, which are sold illegally on an international black market driven mostly by ivory demand in China and other parts of Asia. Agricultural expansion is the top factor in habitat loss.

The forest elephant population is estimated to be about a third that of savanna elephants. Poaching has affected forest elephants disproportionately and has ravaged populations of both species in northern and eastern Africa.

"We have lost a number of elephant populations across many countries, but the northern Sahel region of Africa - for example in Mali, Chad and Nigeria - has been particularly hard hit. High pressure and limited protection have culminated in populations being extirpated," Wittemyer said.

But in southern Africa, elephant populations rose at 42% of the surveyed sites.

"We have seen real success in a number of places across Africa, but particularly in southern Africa, with strong growth in populations in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. For populations showing positive trends, we have had active stewardship and management by the governments or outside groups that have taken on a management role," Wittemyer said.

The study did not track a continent-wide population tally because the various surveys employed different methodologies over different time frames to estimate local elephant population density, making a unified head count impossible. Instead, it assessed population trends at each of the surveyed sites.

A population estimate by conservationists conducted separately from this study put the two species combined at between 415,000 and 540,000 elephants as of 2016, the last year of the study period. It remains the most recent comprehensive continent-wide estimate.

"The loss of large mammals is a significant ecological issue for Africa and the planet," said conservation ecologist and study co-author Dave Balfour, a research associate in the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

The world's third extant elephant species, the slightly smaller Asian elephant, faces its own population crisis, with similar factors at play as in Africa.

Of African elephants, Wittemyer said, "While the trends are not good, it is important to recognize the successes we have had and continue to have. Learning how and where we can be successful in conserving elephants is as important as recognizing the severity of the decline they have experienced."

Wittemyer added of these elephants: "Not only one of the most sentient and intelligent species we share the planet with, but also an incredibly important part of ecosystems in Africa that structures the balance between forest and grasslands, serves as a critical disperser of seeds, and is a species on which a multitude of other species depend on for survival."