Extreme object

3C 273

3C 273 is a quasar 2 200 000 000 light-years away, weighing 886 million Suns.

The first quasar ever identified and the brightest in our sky: a black hole of nearly a billion Suns eating gas, outshining the whole giant galaxy around it sixteen times over.

Key facts

Kind

Quasar

Distance

2 200 000 000 light-years

Mass

886.00 million Suns

See it from here

Too faint for the eye; a telescope, or a long photograph, shows it.

How the map draws it

Drawn as a bright point where its redshift puts it, with a ring marking the place; its disc and its jet are far too small to draw — the kind of thing, not this exact one.