No other cosmic object has triggered the attention and curiosity of scientists so much as the black hole. There’s no wonder why, though – imagine an invisible structure able to suck in pretty much everything with its infinite gravity, even light itself. The incredible gravity even allows time to stop, which is another mind-boggling feature of these cosmic objects.
You don’t have to be Einstein’s reincarnation to figure out that you shouldn’t plan any trips to a black hole if you care about your life. Luckily enough, all the discovered black holes are safely far away from Earth, but scientists believe that such a hypothesis could slightly be wrong.
Black Hole located about 1,011 light-years away from us
The black hole located in the star system HR 6819 and discovered this year is almost terrifyingly close to us: only 1,011 light-years away. Scientist Thomas Rivinius from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) was also the one leading the study, and he said:
“If you find one that is very close to you, and you assume you’re not special, then they must be out there everywhere.”
Mr Rivinius also said: “There must be hundreds of millions of black holes out there, but we know about only very few
“Knowing what to look for should put us in a better position to find them.”
Judging by the enormous distances of our galaxy, which measures over 100,000 light-years across, the black hole from HR 6819 is quite close to our planet. This is a huge hint that the Milky Way is loaded with undiscovered black holes.
And it’s not profitable to jump into a black hole with the hope that you’ll be traveling back in time, either. Interstellar may be a great movie, but it’s only sci-fi, and the scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson dismissed the fall into the black hole part.
