Black hole
M87*
The first black hole ever imaged (EHT 2019), centre of Virgo A
The 6.5-billion-solar-mass giant at the centre of the galaxy Virgo A (M87); its event horizon spans 38 billion km (~6 times Pluto's orbit). This is the first black hole image, released by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2019: a ring of bright photons around a central shadow. It launches a relativistic jet 5,000 light-years long.
| Mass | 6,500 million solar masses |
|---|---|
| Event horizon radius | 128 AU: 4.3 times Neptune's orbit |
| Time for light to circle the event horizon once | 110 hours |
| Mass | 6,5 × 10⁹ M☉ |
| Distance | 16.4 Mpc (53.5 million light-years) |
| Shadow diameter | ~42 µas (EHT 2019) |
| Jet | ~5,000 light-years, 99% of the speed of light |
| Status | Active galactic nucleus |
| Discovery | 1918 (jet, Curtis) · 2019 (gölge, EHT) |
Through a telescope from Earth
The event horizon is the boundary where the escape velocity equals the speed of light: nothing inside, not even light, can get out. Its radius grows in direct proportion to the mass (the Schwarzschild radius, for a non-rotating black hole).