Gaia BH1: Earth's Nearest Known Black Hole at 1,600 Light-Years
Astronomers have identified Gaia BH1 as the closest known black hole to Earth (about 1,600 light-years away), detected through the Gaia mission by tracking a Sun-like star’s unusual motion around an unseen 10-solar-mass companion in a wide orbit—an arrangement that challenges standard binary evolution models and raises questions about how such systems form.