When it comes to black holes, does size really matter? Would you be afraid if astronomers discovered one of the tiniest black holes ever? Would you change your mind if they told you it was also the closest black hole to the Earth ever found? How close? Ah, all of sudden, size DOES matter! Tharindu Jayasinghe is a doctoral student in astronomy at The Ohio State University and part of a team of researchers looking for tiny black holes – a new class of black holes discovered in 2019 at The Ohio State University. They were scanning data on a red giant star in the constellation Monoceros – so named because it resembles the mythical steed – when they noticed something was causing the light from the red giant to periodically change in intensity and appearance. The changes were so drastic that they signaled the orbiting object was massive enough to change its shape – a phenomenon called tidal distortion – but not large enough to block it completely from view. Knowing what they know at OSU about tiny black holes, they suspected (and hoped) that’s what was circling the red giant.