A Sun-like Star Orbiting Closest Black Hole to Earth

This animation shows a Sun-like star orbiting Gaia BH1, the closest black hole to Earth, located about 1600 light-years away. Observations by Gemini North, one of the twin telescopes of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, were crucial to constraining the orbital motion and hence masses of the two components in the binary system, allowing the team to identify the central body as a black hole roughly 10 times as massive as our Sun.