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Which is the nearest known or suspected black hole from the Solar System and how far is it from us? Is there an easily-viewed catalog that astronomers use to keep track of these?

ProfRob
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Gaurav Mody
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    We don't know how close the nearest black hole is. It is almost certainly invisible. See https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/4725/statistically-what-would-the-average-distance-of-the-closest-black-hole-be – ProfRob Sep 09 '17 at 13:35
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    Looks like the nearest known one is still about 30,000 LY away, near galactic center: https://www.universetoday.com/137062/another-monster-black-hole-found-milky-way/ – Wayfaring Stranger Sep 09 '17 at 15:17
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    Possible duplicate of Statistically, what would the average distance of the closest black hole be? – James K Sep 09 '17 at 19:43
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    Wikipedia lists are not the final word on a given subject. I think a far better way to handle this question would be to cite a proper "astronomer-quality" list of black holes. Surely astronomers do not refer to Wikipedia articles as sources of reliable information. I also think that the question should be left OPEN and answered because it is of particular interest to future readers. My goodness I had no idea there were so many black holes so close by! Why would you insta-close and burry the question instead of up voting and answering it? SE is about good answers, not question target practice – uhoh Sep 10 '17 at 07:18
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    @JamesK no, asking "what is the closest" and asking "statistically, what would be the closest" are different questions. If you asked for the closest WC in a pinch, and someone only told you statistically speaking what the distance to the closest one would be, would you feel comfortable that your question had been adequately addressed? – uhoh Sep 10 '17 at 07:30
  • @WayfaringStranger looks like you are wrong by a factor of ten. – uhoh Sep 10 '17 at 07:31
  • @RobJeffries I've modified the wording a bit to try to rescue this good question. I've added "known or suspected" because I think that's what the OP is looking for. However, that is a really important point and I think an answer should include that! – uhoh Sep 10 '17 at 07:33
  • I'd always suggest questioners demonstrate some prior research in their question. However, in this case, the Wikipedia article quoted in comments isn't a particularly useful starting point so I think this is a good question. – MartinV Sep 10 '17 at 10:07
  • @uhoh, but the difference is that most are invisible. If I asked someone in Manchester station where the nearest toilet was, and he answered "I know of one in London", I'd think he was being obstructive. On the other hand if he said that he didn't know, but there is probably one nearby (statistically most mainline stations have toilets), that is honest, and more useful. – James K Sep 10 '17 at 13:08

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According to table 2 of Corral Santana (2015) (The BlackCAT catalogue of stellar mass black holes in X-ray transients - which other than gravitational waves, is how they are found), the nearest known black hole (as of 05 Dec 2022) is the primary of the V616 Mon system (otherwise known as A0620-003) at a distance of $1.06 \pm 0.10$ kpc ($3460 \pm 390$ ly).

Galactic black holes can only be found at present when they are in close binary systems with other stars (or black holes). This is the tiny minority of an estimated Galactic population of 100 million black holes. Gravitational wave detections of merging black hole binaries can be also be made, but these are rare and none have been observed from within our Galaxy.

The nearest black hole is likely invisible to us at present. A statistical estimate can be made (see my answer here) that the nearest will be within 20 pc or so, depending on the parent population and detailed physics of supernovae. Searches are currently underway for massive unseen companions to "normal" stars that might betray their presence by causing distinct wobbles in the observed motion of the normal star.

The online BlackCAT catalogue.

Edit: Stop press. El Badry et al. (2023) report the discovery of a $>5M_\odot$ unseen companion to a solar-type star, at a distance of $477\pm 4$ pc. This is likely to be a black hole and was discovered by observing the reflex motion of the companion star with Gaia.

ProfRob
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