When is a black hole not a black hole? When its a boson star

[Judi Lynn]

12 July 2017

Astronomers are confident they know what the mysterious massive object at the Milky Way’s heart is – but our first direct view this year could bring a shock


By Stuart Clark

FASCINATING, bamboozling, vaguely terrifying: black holes are the love-to-hate monsters of the universe. These insatiable cosmic cannibals are concrete predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the best theory of gravity we have. Even so, theorists long debated whether they could exist – until astronomers saw the first signs of them. Now we see black hole paw prints all over: in huge stars collapsing in on themselves, in distant collisions of massive objects that set the universe quivering, and in the dark hearts of galaxies including our own.

More:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23531340-600-when-is-a-black-hole-not-a-black-hole/?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=ILC&utm_campaign=webpush&cmpid=ILC%257CNSNS%257C2016-GLOBAL-webpush-boson-star

[Thor_MN]

1. Paywall to read anything more than the vague description...

They don't define bosun star in what little can be seen without subscribing.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I can't get beyond the paywall either. Here's a similar sounding article from last year

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/physics/are-black-holes-real/

Whether there's been a recent development to increase the chances of a boson star, I don't know.