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Astronomers: Closest known black hole to Earth has been found

Closest Black Hole
Posted at 4:20 PM, Nov 04, 2022
and last updated 2022-11-07 15:52:40-05

Astronomers say they've found another black hole and it's now the closest known space entity of its kind to planet Earth.

Scientist announced on Friday that the black hole is ten times the mass of Earth's sun and three times closer to Earth than the previously closest known black hole.

It is located in space just 1,600 light-years away from our planet.

It was found as astronomers were watching the motion of a companion star to the black hole which orbits it at around the same distance Earth orbits our sun.

As Science News reported, it was found by astronomers using the European Space Agency's Gaia craft, according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

A team from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center working with the International Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, confirming their discovery. The data was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

It is unclear how it has formed in the Milky Way. Scientists have labeled it Gaia BH1, and it is situated in the serpent-bearer constellation Ophiuchus.