Astronomers noticed a mysterious hidden object in a nearby star system in the Milky Way galaxy. The object turned out to be the nearest black hole yet, which is located in a star system that is visible to the naked eye, according to ESO.
Located about 1,000 light-years away in the constellation of Telescopium, HR 6819 was originally thought to have been a binary star system. The system was part of a study that was observing such star systems with two stellar body. But during their observations, astronomers discovered a potential third body hidden in the star system. This elusive body turned out to be a stellar-mass black hole which is about 2,500 light-years closer to the Sun than next black hole, according to National Geographic.
Usually, scientists can only spot holes like the latest one when they are absorbing parts of a partner star or another object falls into them.
And most go undiscovered as they do not have anything close enough to swallow.
But with this latest black hole, experts were helped in their discovery by an inner star's orbit being warped.
The hole, thought to be about 25 miles in diameter, is part of what used to be a three-star dance in a system called HR 6819.
And the two other stars were not close enough to be sucked in.
European scientists, using a telescope in Chile, found something about four or five times the mass of the sun was pulling on the inner star and concluded it could only be a black hole.
The discovery in the constellation Telescopium hints that there are more out there.
Astronomers believe there are between 100 million to one billion of these small but dense objects in the Milky Way.