Astronomers discover Milky Way’s biggest stellar black hole

The relevant definitions are explained in the article.

The distinction is clear and relevant because the mass distribution is strongly bimodal. A stellar black hole is the result of the gravitational collapse of a single star (well, or two at most). And maybe some of them have since then merged with a companion body. There are zillions of these in any given galaxy. Whereas there are maybe one or two supermassive black holes per galaxy, sitting in the center, with mass of millions or billions of suns, and we don’t quite know how they first formed and how they have accumulated so much mass. If the difference between "one" and "billion" doesn’t matter to you, well, ok then.

The difference is even more clear-cut because so-called intermediate mass black holes are something of a question mark. For a long time it wasn’t clear whether they even exist in any significant numbers, and even now the evidence is not especially rock-solid, especially with regard to candidate objects in the Milky Way.

To add to a sibling comment, the distinction is important, because observed mass of black holes falls largely into super massive (millions to billions solar masses) to stellar (dozens of solar masses). There is very, very, astonishingly few observed black holes with an intermediate mass. So, how super massive black holes form is a mystery, and finding large stellar mass black holes starts filling in (possibly) that evolutionary gap in black holes. Not a physicist, just read/watch a lot of pop astronomy/cosmology.

Largest "stellar" black hole in Milky Way. Not the "largest black hole" as some media are reporting it in their title.

The largest black hole in Milky Way is million times more massive than our sun. Falls in super massive category.

Thanks, that's always useful.

§3 Discussion: "The estimated mass is also too large for one neutron stars or two neutron stars in a close orbit, so we are left with the possibility of: 1) a single BH; 2) an inner binary containing two BHs; or 3) a BH and another compact object. Although the single BH is the simplest explanation, the hypothesis of an inner binary of two BHs cannot be excluded [...] radial-velocity [...] perturbations are too small to be detected in the Gaia RVS [radial-velocity] data[.] For the purposes of the subsequent discussion we have adopted the single BH hypothesis as the most likely explanation."

Someone with more patience (or more troll-energy) than I have right now might try to introduce this into the handful of threads here containing various complaints that (clearly assuming a single BH), "size" is being punned as mass in the newspaper article linked at the top. If, for example, the ~33 M_sun ("mass of the sun") mass is evenly divided between two central BHs with the giant branch star companion orbiting them (cf. Alpha Centauri AB + wide companion Alpha Centauri C and similar triples), what's the most reasonable understanding of "size"? Or what if the dark component has a mass-ratio of ~ 30:2 split between a BH and a satellite NS? Total mass remains ~33 M_sun, how has "size" changed?

(Answer: "it hasn't". Generally I agree with the comments that read "size" as meaning mass and disagree that it should mean the Schwarzschild radius, and not just because the dark component might not be very Schwarzschild-like at all. Perhaps someone might do an ELI5 of dimensional analysis g = T^-2 L -> M = T^-2 L^3 or Gauss's law for gravity. (Serious ambition would be ELI12 of the argument around the "scale separation" towards the end of the excellent https://physicscourses.colorado.edu/phys2210/phys2210_fa20/l...>, where we'd distinguish the scale of a possible inner-binary from the scale of the giant star's orbit around it.))