Question: How close is the nearest black whole and neutron star?

Ry Cutter answered on 4 May 2020: last edited 6 May 2020 5:12 pm

The closest black hole is 3000 light years away! We can see it because of the light emitted from the companion star as the blackhole tears it up!
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The closest know neutron star is about 400 light years away! It isn’t a super interesting star, but the second closest neutron star is 419 light years away. That second one is a pulsar. These are fast spinning neutron stars that work like light houses! They’re often referred to as the time keepers of the universe, because they’re spin is so consistent!
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Great Question,
Ry
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*EDIT*
So, I just got around to reading some more papers, and I found this: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2020/05/aa38020-20/aa38020-20.html

Which says there’s a black hole 1000 lightyears away (the paper was published a few weeks ago!) We can see it because there are two stars going around it! We can see the stars around it with the naked eye!