The Black Hole Hunters Organization is a loose, semi-official, semi-non-governmental organization composed of professional or semi-professional researchers who are interested in black holes and hope to find more black holes.

To a certain extent, they are guided by official scientific research forces, and some of them are allocated by the government. The rest of the sources also have donations, as well as self-funding.

Some of the more extreme black hole enthusiasts even sold their homes to raise money to search for black holes a few years ago.

What Lu Ming was looking for at the moment were some teams in the Black Hole Hunter Organization. What these teams have in common is that they all aim to search for black holes closer to the solar system.

So far, the closest black hole candidate to Earth that can be found in the human universe is Cygnus X-1.

It is about 6,070 light-years away from Earth. - The reason why they are called black hole candidates and not black holes is because black holes are so difficult to observe.

Think about it, even if the light method breaks free from its gravitational field, and it does not emit any radiation of its own except the presumed Hawking radiation, what other way can people observe it?

Even the estimated Hawking radiation is extremely low in intensity. For a black hole with a stellar mass, its intensity is only a few hundred-millionths of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and it is impossible to measure it.

Based on this situation, the observation of black holes can only be carried out through the interaction between the black hole and its surrounding environment.

For example, when a black hole devours interstellar dust and devours the rest of the planets, the process of falling matter into the black hole will release extremely strong radiation, or phenomena such as gravitational lensing caused by its own gravity to indirectly judge its existence.

Because it is only an indirect judgment and not a direct observation, it can only be called a black hole candidate rather than a black hole.

After all, even if it is similar, it is not 100% certain that it is a black hole, maybe it is some other physical process, but it is very similar to the speculated black hole?

In general, though, there's nothing wrong with thinking of a black hole candidate as a black hole. After all, there are basically no other theories that can explain what happened there that can be identified as a candidate for a black hole.

More than 6,000 light-years from Earth, a dense star that can be directly observed by the law and a blue supergiant star form a binary star system, and the distance between the two is only about 30 million kilometers.

The mass of that compact star is about 9 times the mass of the Sun. The massive mass equivalent to nine suns is confined to a sphere with a radius of only about 26 kilometers.

With such a high density, it is almost impossible for it to be anything other than a black hole. Its predecessor was supposed to be a massive star that reached 40 times the mass of the Sun.

The star lost the equivalent of 30 suns at the end of its life, and the rest of the mass was sealed in this tiny black hole, and it was never able to come out again.

Its companion star is a blue supergiant star with about 30 solar masses. Two stars of this magnitude orbit wildly around each other at an extremely close distance.

This is the closest black hole candidate to Earth that has been discovered so far. However, it is theorized that there should be a fairly large number of black holes in the Milky Way.

Their number could be a million or even more. It is obviously unreasonable that such a large number of black holes are the closest to Earth, all of which are more than 6,000 light-years away.

The most likely conclusion is that there are also black holes closer to Earth. It's just that people haven't found out yet.

These teams, which belong to the Black Hole Hunters organization, are on a mission to find black holes closer to Earth.

At this moment, Lu Ming came to Professor Wen Chengcheng's office. Professor Wen Chengcheng is a university teacher, and in addition to his normal teaching work, he also has a position in the Black Hole Hunter Organization, which can be regarded as a relatively professional researcher in this organization.

"It's hard to do work." As soon as Professor Wen saw Lu Ming, he poured bitter water: "Our group of people can be regarded as generating electricity for love." There's no way, it's not taken seriously, and the scriptures allocated by the superiors are all assigned to the further observation and confirmation of those stars with higher potential, and those of us who specialize in searching for close-range space are the children raised by the stepmother. Lu Ming can understand this situation.

After that, the observation of the more likely stars is not assigned to it, can it be used to make you wave?

Your observation project is unreliable at first glance, there is no evidence, take a little here, a little bit of clues there, dare to apply for an observation?

You can still hear the sound of throwing money in the water, but you can't even hear it.

"I'm an astrophysics professor, do you know what I've been up to lately?" Wen Chengcheng smiled bitterly: "I'm rubbing the field everywhere." When I found out where there were training courses, gatherings for entrepreneurs, etc., I tried my best to contact the organizers and begged them to let me give a speech in the name of popularizing science and broadening my horizons, hoping to arouse the curiosity of those capitalists and ask them to give my team a little sponsorship. Well, if it's good, it's called sponsorship, but if it's ugly, I'm just a begger. Lu Ming listened to Wen Chengcheng's complaints in embarrassment and politeness, and after a long time, he took advantage of Wen Chengcheng's drinking gap to see the stitches and said, "Professor Wen, what are the suspected targets at close range in your hands?" When it came to business, Professor Wen Chengcheng finally stopped complaining.

He flipped out a stack of information and introduced it to Lu Ming: "The numbered one, a dense star, one star is a white dwarf, and the other star reflects the data that it is a neutron star, but the radiation of that white dwarf star is obviously abnormal, and I suspect that its companion star is not a neutron star but a black hole." It is only about 3,500 light-years away from Earth. In addition, a previous telescope had observed gravitational lensing in this direction, but no macroscopic stars were found at the corresponding location. I suspect there's a black hole hiding there, too. This candidate is closer to Earth, only about 1,600 light-years. Lu Ming said: "Is there anything closer?" Preferably within 1000 light years. If it's within 100 light years, it's even better. Professor Wen Chengcheng's eyes lit up.

"Not to mention 100 light-years, there are suspected targets within 10 light-years." Lu Ming perked up: "Oh? Professor Wen Chengcheng quickly took a stack of information: "Look at this, in the direction of Andromeda, the distance is about 6.7 light years, when a space telescope observed Andromeda before, the generated picture was disturbed to a certain extent, causing the light to be slightly distorted. I used mathematical calculations to suspect that there was a strong gravitational source there that caused the change in the path of light propagation. And this, in the direction of Orion, when a space telescope was observing a distant target, it accidentally observed a faint burst of X-rays coming from there. I suspect there's a black hole hiding there, a faint burst of X-rays, maybe the black hole is devouring interstellar dust...... Yes, there's a dense cloud of interstellar molecules. Wen Chengcheng introduced the information in his hand to Lu Ming.

After listening to it for a while, Lu Ming gradually came back to his senses. Professor Wen Chengcheng's materials are all

"Touching porcelain" came to me. Based on the data from the rest of the observations, the anomalies in those data are analyzed to find the possibility of hiding a black hole in close proximity.

This is obviously a bit unreliable. He can't confirm that his information is first-hand, and he can't confirm that the information is accurate and complete, just relying on a little clue, or even some subtle signs that can't even be called clues, dare to use it as a credential and then look for scriptures to observe?

I don't blame the boss for refusing to give him the scriptures. But...... Lu Ming came today, just to be the wronged leader.

"How much does it take to check all the suspected targets?" Lu Ming did not entangle with Professor Wen Chengcheng anymore, but directly asked the most critical question.

"3 million...... No, 2 million! 2,000,000 is enough! In addition, it would be nice if the observation time of some astronomical telescopes could be coordinated with me. Time, almost half a year. Lu Ming thought for a while and said directly: "I'll give you a coordination of 5 million scriptures." But the time, I hope to complete it within a month. I can also coordinate the observation time of the space telescope you need. "Bang!

Professor Wen Chengcheng stood up with his hands directly on the table, his eyes looking at Lu Ming as hot as a bull in heat, his lips trembling and he couldn't even speak.

Lu Ming subconsciously leaned back, wrapped his arms around his chest, and made a defensive posture.

"Too ...... Great, great! Professor Wen excitedly clenched one hand into a fist and kept smashing the palm of the other hand: "5 million scriptures, 5 million!" Mr. Lu, don't worry, within a month, no, as long as 20 days, 20 days, I will definitely be able to complete the initial screening! "Initial screening has been able to screen out some targets that are obviously not possible.

This means that those who can pass the initial screening have a greater possibility of being a black hole. Lu Ming slowly lowered his guard and said with a smile: "That's good." Now, which teams to contact and who to find to assist you in the future, you can get started. ”

"Don't worry, don't worry!" Saying goodbye to Professor Wen, Lu Ming did not leave directly, but found another team leader within the Black Hole Hunter Organization.

Similar to Professor Wen, the person in charge also has some suspicious targets, but because he has no experience, he is unable to carry out follow-up observations and confirmations.

Talk to him and confirm the person in charge

"Quality", Lu Ming finally made the decision to sponsor him for 3 million human coins. After three busy days, Lu Ming met with a total of 8 team leaders and gave out more than 20 million human coins in sponsorship.

Perhaps because he heard the news that there was a wronged black hole named Lu Ming who was crazy to scatter coins in the search circle, after Lu Ming took the initiative to visit the eight team leaders, there began to be professional or unprofessional, people who sincerely wanted to search for black holes, or simply directly pit money like moths seeing the lights, and frantically rushed towards Lu Ming.

However, Lu Ming was insensitive to all of them, and refused them all, without even showing his face. The eight people he visited before were already the most reliable after review.

It's enough to have them. After completing this matter, Lu Ming began to wait for further results.

He didn't wait long. Only half a month later, Professor Wen Chengcheng called.

"Mr. Lu, we have completed the initial screening, and we have confirmed a candidate object with a higher probability!" Professor Wen Chengcheng's words were full of excitement: "A goal 8.6 light-years away from the solar system!" We used a radio telescope to look at that place in the X-ray band and confirmed that it was a relatively faint X-ray source! At the moment, because of the different types of radiation, I can confirm that it is not a white dwarf or a neutron star! Of course, in addition to black holes, it may also be some special type of brown dwarf, or sub-brown dwarf, but I am confident that it is very likely to be a black hole! Oh my God, a black hole that is only 8.6 light-years away from the solar system, a black hole so close has directly narrowed from more than 6,000 light-years to 8.6 light-years, big discovery, big discovery, subversive......" Lu Ming was also refreshed.

It was the first news he had heard of further progress.

"Professor Wen, you immediately organize an observation force to conduct further observation and confirmation. Is it enough? If that's not enough, I can coordinate a little more here. Lu Ming originally thought that Professor Wen would open his mouth and slander himself fiercely.

At this moment, he was also ready for heavy bleeding. But unexpectedly, Professor Wen said: "No need, the upper side has dialed the scriptures for me!" Enough! Observation forces were also specially coordinated to assist me, and there was no limit to the length of observation time of the telescope. Lu Ming was stunned, and then reacted.

Before, because the observation project was unreliable, no one paid attention to him and refused to give him the scriptures.

But now that there have been further great discoveries, of course, the top is generous, and the economy, personnel, materials, and observation time are all immediately open to supply.

In the end, if it is finally confirmed that it is indeed a black hole, then the discovery is too big to shock the whole world.

How could the top be stingy at this time? Lu Ming breathed a sigh of relief. If you don't let yourself out, of course it's better.

"Well, if you find anything further, please let me know immediately. And...... Congratulations to Professor Wen first, maybe your name can really be left in the textbook. ”

"Hey, hey, hey." Professor Wen Chengcheng laughed a few times, calmed down his emotions, and then said, "Mr. Lu, I have a question for you. Mr. Lu, you seem to be very confident that there are really black holes around the solar system, and I have always wondered, where does your confidence come from? ”