The black holes have created endless stories, as they were known to be enormous regions so powerful that nothing can ever escape them, not even light. NASA scientists managed to find this time a “baby” hole, the smallest discovered to date, lighter than other black wholes known so far. The announcement was made on March 31 by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Nikolai Shaposhnikov and Lev Titarchuck, who initially discovered it.

Its mass is approximately 3.8 times greater than our Sun's (which is normally said to be able to contain a million Earths), and has a 15 miles diameter, which is pretty much the minimum size scientists predicted for a black hole. “This black hole is really pushing the limits,” said Shaposhnikov. “For many years astronomers have wanted to know the smallest possible size of a black hole, and this little guy is a big step toward answering that question.”

The black hole lies in the Milky Way Binary System known as XTE J1650-500, scientists said, in the southern constellation Ara. Scientists found out about the existence of the black hole years ago, but they were not able to measure it until now. The lead scientists used the relationship between black holes and the inner part of their surrounding disks to do that, a method detailed in the Astrophysical Journal.

So far, researchers have assumed that the smallest black hole that could possibly exist out there should be no smaller than three times the weight of our Sun, otherwise it would run out of fuel and form what is known as a neutron star. “This makes the black hole one of the smallest objects ever discovered outside our solar system,” Shaposhnikov explained.

It may be small, but that doesn’t make it less dangerous for any space object, scientists warned, as it is believed to have an even stronger tidal force than larger ones found in the centers of galaxies. “if you ventured too close to J1650’s black hole, its gravity would tidally stretch your body into a strand of spaghetti,” Shaposhnikov warned future space adventurers.