M87*
The first black hole ever photographed
A monstrous 6.5 billion solar-mass black hole in galaxy M87. Its first image, released in 2019, showed the shadow predicted by Einstein a century earlier.
Image: EHT Collaboration
Vital statistics
Type
Supermassive Black Hole
Mass
6.5 billion Suns
Distance
55 million light-years
Event horizon
~38 billion km
Did you know
First direct image of a black hole, released April 2019.
Fact 01
Powers a relativistic jet 5,000 light-years long.
Fact 02
Its shadow is larger than our solar system.
Fact 03
Research & publications
Jump straight into peer-reviewed papers, preprints and authoritative references for M87*.
arXiv (preprints)
Open-access preprints in physics & astrophysics.
NASA ADS
The definitive bibliographic database for astronomy.
Google Scholar
Cross-publisher academic search.
Nature
Peer-reviewed articles in Nature & sister journals.
Wikipedia
Encyclopedic overview & onward references.
Tip: ask the Research AI for a curated reading list → /research
