There's a black hole lurking within 1,000 light years of Earth – and you can see stars circling it with the naked eye
Disclaimer: Black hole not visible, southern hemisphere required
Astronomers have stumbled across the nearest black hole to us yet. The void lies at the heart of a stellar system just 1,000 light years away, and indications to its location are visible to the naked eye.
A team of researchers were observing HR 6819 with the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) 2.2m MPG/ESO telescope in Chile as part of a wider survey studying binary star systems, before they stumbled across a third object. Spectrographic data revealed that one of the stars orbited an invisible companion every 40 days. Meanwhile, the second star sits much further away from the first.
More: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/06/nearest_black_hole_earth/