Astronomers have found the closest known black hole to Earth
The black hole Gaia BH1 is about 10 times the mass of the Sun and orbits a star like a sun.
Black holes are thought to be the closest that science has ever found a black hole.
Black holes are common in our galaxy. They are often associated with supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.
Astronomers have dreamed of finding such black holes for decades. So far, there's been no evidence of finding them.
Scientists from around the world have been using the latest Gaia measurements of 1.3 billion stars to map out a three-dimensional view of our universe.
A star orbiting a black hole at a safe distance won't get eaten, but it will be pulled back and forth by the black hole's gravity.
One star out of hundreds of thousands that looked like they were tugged by an unseen object was like a good black hole candidate.
Gaia BH1 is the next closest black hole to Earth ever discovered the next closest is about 3,200 light-years away.
Astronomers estimate that there are about 100 million black holes in the Milky Way galaxy, but most of them are invisible. They’re just isolated, so we can’t see them.
The next data release from Gaia is due out in 2025, and El-Badry expects it to bring more black hole bounty.