Extreme object

M87*

M87* is a black hole 53 500 000 light-years away, weighing 6.50 billion Suns.

The first black hole anyone photographed: the orange ring of 2019. Six and a half billion Suns, at the heart of the galaxy M87.

Key facts

Kind

Black hole

Distance

53 500 000 light-years

Mass

6 500 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 ring at its measured distance; a black hole has no shape to draw and a pulsar is far too small — the kind of thing, not this exact one · while this card is open its picture is drawn at its place, far larger than it would look from here.