Gaia BH1, the closest known black hole to Earth!

The closest known black hole, Gaia BH1, was discovered in 2022.

Here are the key details:

Who found it?

The discovery was led by Kareem El-Badry, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

El-Badry is sometimes nicknamed the “black hole destroyer” because he has disproved many supposed black hole discoveries—but in this case, he confirmed a real one.

When?

The discovery paper was published on November 2, 2022, in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

How?

Data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft first flagged unusual orbital motion of a Sun-like star.

Follow-up observations with the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and other facilities confirmed that the star was orbiting an invisible object about 10 times the Sun’s mass—a dormant black hole.

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✨ In short:

Gaia BH1 was discovered in 2022 by Kareem El-Badry and his team, using ESA’s Gaia mission data, confirmed with Gemini North Telescope observations.

 Gaia BH1, the closest known black hole to Earth!

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Closest Known Black Hole: Gaia BH1

Name: Gaia BH1

Type: Dormant stellar-mass black hole

Distance: approximately 1,560–1,600 light-years from Earth .

Location: In the constellation Ophiuchus .

Mass: Around 10 times the mass of our Sun .

How Was It Discovered?

Gaia BH1 remained hidden because it's dormant—not actively accreting matter or emitting bright X-rays. Instead, its presence was inferred by observing the motion of its companion star, a Sun-like star orbiting the black hole at a distance akin to Earth's orbit around the Sun. Precise data from ESA’s Gaia spacecraft, followed up by observations using the Gemini North Telescope, confirmed its nature as a black hole .

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Related Notable Discoveries

Object Distance (light-years) Notes

HR 6819 (candidate) ~1,000 Proposed as a nearby black hole in 2020, but its existence is now debated and not confirmed .

Gaia BH3 ~1,924 A much more massive stellar-mass black hole (~33 × Sun’s mass), but farther away—thus, second-closest confirmed .

Omega Centauri's IMBH ~18,000 An intermediate-mass black hole (~8,200 × Sun’s mass) found in the star cluster Omega Centauri, but far beyond Gaia BH1 .

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Summary

The closest confirmed black hole is Gaia BH1, located roughly 1,560 light-years away in Ophiuchus, and is about 10 times the mass of our Sun.

Its detection was made possible by observing the gravitational influence it exerts on a companion star.

Other contenders like HR 6819 remain controversial, and Gaia BH3, while more massive, is somewhat farther from us.