For the first time, the NASA/ESA (European Space Agency) Hubble Space Telescope has provided direct evidence of a lone black hole roaming space by precise measurements of the ghostly object's mass. Until now, measurements of black holes have been inferred statistically or through interactions with binary systems or galaxy nuclei.

This means that large black holes are only found with companion stars, unlike this case. The newly detected rogue black hole lies about 5,000 light-years away in the Carina-Sagittarius spiral arm of our galaxy. However, its discovery allows astronomers to estimate that the closest isolated stellar-mass black hole to Earth may be just 80 light-years away. The closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is just over 4 light years away. This interesting discovery was made by Hubble in 2022, read more about that interesting.