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Last Post 3/19/2012 8:06 AM by Paulett Liewer

Black Holes

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3/19/2012 7:35 AM
Hi. My name is Sahar and I wanted to ask if you knew exactly how far away the closest black hole to earth is. If you can't give an exact number,an estimate would be fine.

Tags: black holes

Paulett Liewer

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Posts:113

3/19/2012 8:06 AM
Hi Sahar What an interesting question! I didn't know the answer, so I went to the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/w.../Stellar_black_hole) The closest candidate black hole is a small one (about 11 times the mass of the Sun) is only 3500 light years away ...much closer than the supermassive black hole near the center of our galaxy - and thats about 25,000-28,000 light years away. A light year is how far light travels in 1 year. This is only a "candidate" black hole. We can't see the black hole, but as material falls toward the black hole, it gets very hot and radiates X-rays. Astronomers meaure the X-rays and other radiation and try to determine if an X-ray source is a black hole or just a neutron star... Black holes are fascinating objects! Paulett