Cambridge, Astronomers have discovered a black hole closer to Earth than any other previously found. It’s about ten times as massive as the sun and is located 1,600 light-years away, which is considered as nearby on a cosmic scale.

While scientists have only spotted about 20 black holes in the Milky Way to date, they estimate that some 100 million more are lurking in our galaxy, each between 5 and 100 times more massive than the sun.

With so many more undetected, the newly discovered black hole shouldn’t hold the title of “closest to Earth” forever, suggests the paper published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Most black holes are born from the deaths of large stars, according to NASA. When stars roughly ten times the mass of the sun or bigger reach the ends of their lives, they collapse in powerful supernova explosions. They leave behind the mass of at least several suns, tightly packed into a relatively small space: the black hole. These dense objects have incredibly strong gravitational pulls from which nothing, including light itself, can escape.

Dormant black holes, like the newly discovered one, are not feeding and therefore don’t emit X-rays. Though dormant black holes are more common, they can be harder to spot.

Source: Oman News Agency