The dense stellar remnant would, if confirmed, be the closest known object to any black hole, according to preliminary research

Supermassive black holes are not picky eaters. They placidly sit at the center of galaxies, but if material gets too close, they’ll voraciously gorge on it. Stars have been disrupted and eaten too when they got too close.

According to the research shared at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Maryland, the observed X-ray oscillations are believed to originate from a compact white dwarf orbiting close to the black hole's event horizon.