Key facts
- Category
- Black holes
- Object class
- Ultramassive black hole
- Scale fact
- 240 billion kmevent horizon diameter
- Mass
- ~40.7 billion solar masses
TON 618
240 billion kmevent horizon diameter
Visual creditscaleofspace.org / CC BY-NC 4.0
Details
TON 618 is a hyperluminous quasar powered by one of the most massive black holes known. We see it from a far younger universe, and the quasar is so overwhelmingly bright that the galaxy around it is largely lost in the glare.
TON 618 is a distant quasar whose broad emission lines imply a central black-hole mass of about 40.7 billion Suns. The estimate depends on the relation between the quasar’s luminosity, line widths and the unseen gas geometry, so it is less direct than a mass derived from resolved stellar orbits.
Its roughly 240-billion-kilometer event-horizon diameter is calculated from that mass. What telescopes detect is the exceptionally bright accretion flow around the black hole, which overwhelms the light of its host galaxy.
Links
- Editorial guides
- Universe journey
- Observable universe
- Preset views
- Wikipedia
- TON 618 on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near TON 618 on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, TON 618 falls between Holm 15A* and Phoenix A*. The band uses nearby Ultramassive black hole records.
Sources
References for TON 618
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- TON 618 — Wikipedia
- Visual: scaleofspace.org / CC BY-NC 4.0
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.