M87*
What is M87*?
Black holes & quasars· Distance 55 million ly. The first black hole ever photographed. Sitting at the heart of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 in Virgo, its shadow was captured in April 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-sized array of radio dishes. Find it in Virgo in the Sky view and compare its horizon with the solar system on the size ladder.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where M87* is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=m87 — location and time set automatically, no login.
Its place in the sky
A black hole, in the direction of Virgo.
Mass, distance, nature
| Mass | ~6.5 billion Suns |
|---|---|
| Distance | ~55 million ly |
| Event horizon | ~40 billion km across |
| Jet | ~5,000 ly long |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Discovery and name
The first image of a black hole (April 2019) — the Earth-sized EHT array captured this 6.5-billion-Sun giant.
Frequently asked
- What is the mass of M87*?
- ~6.5 billion Suns.
- How far is M87* from Earth?
- ~55 million ly.
- Where in the sky is M87*?
- In the direction of Virgo.
- Where is M87* in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
The 2018 image — the bright spot on the ring had moved
The M87* image released in 2019 came from data of April 2017. In 2024 a second image was published from data taken a year later, in April 2018: the ring was the same size, but the brightest part had rotated by about 30°. The unchanged size confirms the theory that a black hole's mass sets the size of its shadow, and the shift of the bright spot means the flow of surrounding gas had changed within a year.
The bright part is where gas approaching us is brightened by the Doppler effect, so its position depends on the direction of the black hole's spin axis and the tilt of the gas disk. Combining the two images gave a spin axis inclined about 17° from our line of sight, consistent with the direction of M87's jet. The Event Horizon Telescope now aims to image M87* every year and string the frames into a film of how gas moves around the shadow.
The black hole in depth
M87* is the supermassive black hole at the centre of M87, the dominant galaxy of the Virgo Cluster. It weighs about 6.5 billion Suns, and its event horizon spans roughly 40 billion kilometres, wide enough to swallow Neptune's orbit with room to spare. A jet some 5,000 light-years long streams from the core; it was bright enough to be photographed as early as 1918, so astronomers have known for a century that this galaxy is special.
On 10 April 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration released the orange ring that became the first direct image of a black hole. Eight radio observatories observed together in April 2017, forming a virtual telescope the size of Earth, and two years of processing turned the data into a picture. The ring's lopsided brightness comes from disk material racing toward us at near light speed, and its diameter matched general relativity's prediction.
The host galaxy shines at magnitude 8.6 in spring skies, in the Virgo Cluster region between Denebola and Vindemiatrix, and a mid-sized telescope shows it as a soft oval glow. The black hole itself is visible only to radio arrays. Select M87 in the Sky view to learn its position on a spring evening, then set its event horizon beside the solar system on the size ladder.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.