Artistic illustration of a double pair of stars consisting of the black hole Gaia BH1 (right) and a yellowish-white Sun-sized star. Gaia BH1 is the closest black hole to Earth, just 1,560 light years away.
The black hole that marks the end of the life of a star called Gaia BH1 was discovered by astronomers in the direction of the constellation of Ophiuchus at a distance of only 1,560 light years from Earth. The black hole with a mass about 10 times the mass of the Sun is part of a double star with its star-shaped partner the size and type of the Sun.
The discovery of the black hole has been confirmed by other studies so that Gaia BH1 is designated as the closest black hole to Earth. As an illustration, the distance to the nearest star outside the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years and the distance from the Sun to the center of the Milky Way is 27,000 light years.
