During winter in the Southern Hemisphere, a blue point of light in the constellation Telescopium gleams overhead. The brilliant pinprick on the sky, which looks like a bright star, is actually two stars in close orbit—accompanied by the closest known black hole to Earth.

The newly discovered black hole is about 1,011 light-years from our solar system in the star system HR 6819. Unveiled today in Astronomy & Astrophysics, the invisible object is locked in an orbit with two visible stars. It’s estimated to be about four times the mass of the sun and roughly 2,500 light-years closer than the next black hole.

“It seems like it’s been hiding in plain sight,” says astronomer Kareem El-Badry, a Ph.D. student