A newly discovered black hole is closer than any other to Earth, scientists say.
It is so nearby that the stars that swirl around it can be see with the naked eye, they write in a new study.
And the object could be just the “tip of the iceberg” with many other similar black holes being hidden and waiting to be found, the astronomers say.
The black hole is a mere 1,000 light-years from Earth, and was spotted using a telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s facility in Chile. But if a person is in the southern hemisphere, they may be able to see the stars of its system on a dark, clear night, without need for a telescope.
“We were totally surprised when we realized that this is the first stellar system with a black hole that can be seen with the unaided eye,” said Petr Hadrava, Emeritus Scientist at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague and co-author of the research.
Read more: The Independent
