Scientists have discovered what may be the smallest-known black hole in the Milky Way galaxy and the closest to our solar system – an object so curious that they nicknamed it ‘the Unicorn.’
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Nicknamed ‘Unicorn’ the researchers said the black hole is roughly three times the mass of our Sun, testing the lower limits of size for these extraordinarily dense objects.
A luminous red giant star orbits with the black hole in a so-called binary star system named V723 Mon.
The black hole is located about 1,500 light years – the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) – from Earth. While it may be the closest one to us, it is still far away. By way of comparison, the closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is 4 light years away.
Black holes like this one form when massive stars die and their cores collapse. The study is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
