" "It is closer to the sun than any other known black hole..." " via sputniknews Scientists managed to locate the new black hole thanks to the data supplied by the European Space Agency's Gaia mission. A massive black hole whose mass is around twelve times that of our Sun has been discovered in relative proximity to our Solar System. Found by a team of astronomers led by the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), the black hole appears to be located much closer to the Sun than other celestial bodies of its kind. "It is closer to the sun than any other known black hole, at a distance of 1,550 light years," said Dr. Sukanya Chakrabarti, physics professor at the UAH and lead author of the study detailing the black hole's discovery. "So, it's practically in our backyard." The "monster" black hole, as the university's press release called it, was found after astronomers combed through the data of nearly 200,000 binary stars that was released by the European Space Agency's Gaia mission