TON 618
One of the most massive black holes known
An ultramassive black hole at the heart of a hyperluminous quasar — its mass is 66 billion Suns. The brilliant quasar it powers shines from 18.2 billion light-years away.
Image: Survey image / public domain
Vital statistics
Type
Ultramassive Black Hole
Mass
~66 billion Suns
Distance
~18.2 billion light-years
Event horizon
~390 billion km
Did you know
Its event horizon is 40× the size of Neptune's orbit.
Fact 01
Quasar luminosity exceeds 100 trillion Suns.
Fact 02
Identified in the Tonantzintla catalog (Mexico) in the 1950s.
Fact 03
Research & publications
Jump straight into peer-reviewed papers, preprints and authoritative references for TON 618.
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
