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Thursday, May 12, 2022

Unraveling TON 618: The Universe’s Largest Black Hole


10:50 PM | , ,

TON 618: The Universe’s Largest Black Hole

Supernovas, the most energetic events in the universe, result in the complete disruption of stars, but what about the largest single object we've observed in the universe? That honor goes to TON 618, an ultramassive black hole with mind-boggling characteristics. TON 618 boasts a mass equivalent to 66 billion suns and is situated 18 billion light-years away. Despite this distance, its accretion disk shines as bright as a hundred trillion stars, making it visible from Earth.


The black hole's radius from its event horizon, an impressive 207 billion kilometers, could contain eleven of our solar systems side by side. To illustrate just how vast TON 618 is, consider this: a light particle trapped at the event horizon would take an entire week to reach the center. 



TON 618 came into existence when the universe was relatively young, about 3.4 billion years post the Big Bang. Since then, it has been continuously absorbing matter within its gravitational field and will continue to do so until there's nothing left to consume. Astonishingly, we're viewing an 18 billion-year-old version of TON 618, so its current size could be even more overwhelming.


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1 commenti:

Anonymous said...

Tell me more.

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