This view of part of the Milky Way showcases three zoom levels. At left, the individual star system known as Gaia DR3 4373465352415301632 is shown, which contains a binary companion of ~10 solar masses and an orbital period of 185.6 days (center). At right, an illustration of how the star might appear due to the lensing effect of the black hole is also shown. (Credit: T. Müller (MPIA), PanSTARRS DR1 (K. C. Chambers et al. 2016), ESA/Gaia/DPAC (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO))

How close is the nearest black hole to Earth?

The ESA’s Gaia mission just broke the record for closest black hole by over 1,000 light-years. Is there an even closer one out there?

All across the Universe, massive stars collapse and die.

The anatomy of a very massive star throughout its life, culminating in a Type II Supernova when the core runs out of nuclear fuel. The final stage of fusion is typically silicon-burning, producing iron and iron-like elements in the core for only a brief while before a supernova ensues. If the core of this star is massive enough, it will produce a black hole when the core collapses. (Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller/NSF)

From core-collapse supernovae, neutron stars and black holes form.

The visible/near-IR photos from Hubble show a massive star, about 25 times the mass of the Sun, that has winked out of existence, with no supernova or other explanation. Direct collapse is the only reasonable candidate explanation, and is one known way, in addition to supernovae or neutron star mergers, to form a black hole for the first time. (Credit: NASA/ESA/C. Kochanek (OSU))

Stars and gas directly collapse, forming black holes.

This snippet from a supercomputer simulation shows just over 1 million years of cosmic evolution between two converging cold streams of gas. In this short interval, just a little over 100 million years after the Big Bang, clumps of matter grow to possess individual stars containing tens of thousands of solar masses each in the densest regions. This could provide the needed seeds for the Universe’s earliest, most massive black holes, as well as the earliest seeds for the growth of galactic structures. (Credit: M.A. Latif et al., Nature, 2022)

Finally, neutron star mergers create black holes, too.

When two neutron stars collide, if their total mass is great enough, they won’t just result in a kilonova explosion and the ubiquitous creation of heavy elements, but will lead to the formation of a novel black hole from the post-merger remnant. Gravitational waves and gamma-rays from the merger appear to travel at indistinguishable speeds: the speed of all massless particles. (Credit: Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science)

These black holes roam the Universe, devouring whatever matter contacts their event horizons.