What is the closest black hole, and how long would it take to get to us?
Let BringMeKnowledge bring you into into the space :-)
Yes! the closet black hole is under your bed. Just kidding ;-)
The nearest supermassive black hole is Sagittarius A* in the center of the Milky-way.
Together with all elements of the galaxy including our solar system, we are orbiting this black hole. Being the most massive object in the galaxy, it is not approaching us - all less massive objects (i.e. ALL the stars etc) are being pulled toward the central black hole. Fortunately we are spiraling around it in relatively stable orbits.
Our solar system is ~26000 light years away. If you could SOMEHOW stop orbiting and then fall directly towards Sag A* at the speed of light it would take ~26000 years. Of course since traveling at the speed of light is not remotely possible for you or any other mass, it would take millions of years longer. Furthermore, since we are in a relatively stable orbit which will take billions of years to decay, our date with the black hole is many billions of years in the future, so FORGET about it.
There are some mini black holes in orbit closer to us. Two are orbiting companion stars making BHole-star binaries. One (V616Mon) has a mass of 9-13 solar masses and lies 3450 light years away. Another (XTEJ1650-500) has a mass of 3.8 solar masses and lies 10000 light years away. We would need less time to be dragged towards either one of these. As I said earlier we cannot travel at (or even close to the speed of light) so neither poses any problems to us. Congratulations...
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