Directory · Black Holes

Black Holes

Compare black holes from nearby stellar remnants to the ultramassive objects in distant quasars. Select two or more entries to review their scale, distance, host and supporting evidence.

Known black holes

Icon diameter follows event-horizon size on a logarithmic scale.

Sagittarius A* Supermassive · Milky Way 4.15 million M☉ · 26,700 light-years Compare

M87* Supermassive · Virgo A 6.5 billion M☉ · 55 million light-years Compare

Cygnus X-1 Stellar-mass · X-ray binary 21 M☉ · 7,200 light-years Compare

V404 Cygni Stellar-mass · X-ray transient 9 M☉ · 7,800 light-years Compare

GW150914 remnant Stellar-mass merger 62 M☉ final · 1.3 billion light-years Compare

HLX-1 Intermediate-mass · ESO 243-49 20,000 M☉ · 290 million light-years Compare

TON 618 Ultramassive · quasar 40-66 billion M☉ · 10.4 billion light-years Compare

Gaia BH1 Stellar-mass · dormant 9.6 M☉ · 1,560 light-years Compare

Anatomy in motion

A black hole in motion

This NASA simulation shows a black hole’s shadow, its turbulent accretion disk, and the lensed images that gravity creates around it. Hover a label to preview its annotation, then click to keep it open.

Animation of a black hole with a glowing accretion disk and light bending around the event horizon — A black hole in motion: matter spiralling into the event horizon. Animation: NASA. The lower arc is the lensed far side of the disk.

Hover or tap a numbered marker, or choose a feature below. Click to pin the annotation; Esc clears it.

True-scale explorer

Feel the scale

One continuous, true-size view. Zoom from a city-sized horizon to an ultramassive black hole: every circle stays in true proportion to the others at the current scale.

Scroll to zoom · rings = event horizons

Full size range logarithmic overview

StellarSupermassiveUltramassive

Compare black holes

Select two or more entries above. The comparison updates automatically.

Choose at least two black holes to compare type, mass, distance, host, discovery and defining evidence.

Scale and uncertainty

How to read these numbers

Masses and distances are rounded published estimates and can change with new observations, especially for distant quasars and dormant stellar remnants. “M☉” means solar masses. Distances for far quasars are light-travel distances and are not directly comparable to nearby star distances.