If the Milky Way were a football field, the closest known black hole to Earth sits on our one-yard line. Meet Gaia BH1, a completely silent, invisible ghost just 1,560 light-years away.
Discovered in late 2022 by the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, it is located in the constellation Ophiuchus. For years, astronomers believed other objects held this title. In 2020, a system called HR 6819 was declared the closest black hole at just 1,000 light-years away, but follow-up observations proved it was a "vampire" star system with no black hole at all. As of 2025, Gaia BH1 remains the undisputed record-holder.
The reason it remained hidden for so long is its dormancy. Most black holes are discovered because they are "active"—meaning they tear apart companion stars and gorge on the resulting gas. This violent feeding process heats the gas to millions of degrees, emitting intense X-rays that space telescopes can easily spot. Gaia BH1, however, is not feeding. It emits absolutely no light or radiation.
Astronomers found it by looking at its dance partner. Gaia BH1 is locked in a binary system with a normal, Sun-like star. By analyzing data from the Gaia spacecraft, researchers noticed this star was wobbling in space, orbiting an invisible object every 185.6 days. The unseen object has a mass nearly 10 times that of the Sun—far too heavy to be a neutron star or a white dwarf. It could only be a black hole.
The Milky Way is likely teeming with these dormant black holes. In the years since finding BH1, the Gaia mission has also discovered Gaia BH2 (3,800 light-years away) and Gaia BH3 (a massive 33-solar-mass black hole about 1,926 light-years away).
While 1,560 light-years sounds far, it is practically right next door in cosmic terms. Astronomers estimate there are upwards of 100 million stellar-mass black holes wandering through the Milky Way. Given those numbers, it is a statistical certainty that an even closer, dormant black hole is out there right now, waiting to be discovered by its gravitational tug on the stars around it.