‘Monster’ Black Hole Announced Last Week Is Nothing Special

The Bad Astronomer writes: Last week, scientists announced the discovery of a stellar-mass black hole with 70 times the Sun’s mass, far heftier than theory predicts they can get. Within days, though, four separate papers have come out casting extreme doubt on the claim. They show that the data wasn’t processed correctly, and that the black hole is closer to Earth than first assumed, which changes the calculations and makes it a more normal 5 – 20 solar mass object.