TON 618, a cosmic object whose existence defies the limits of human understanding

The exploration of the universe is an area of ​​science that leads us to discover things that defy the laws of physics.

NASA's virtual journey to the event horizon of a supermassive black hole
The supermassive black hole of Phoenix A, the biggest known light-devouring monster

One of these objects is called TON 618, an abbreviation of Tonantzintla 618, as it was discovered in 1957 by the Schmidt telescope at the Tonantzintla Observatory in Mexico. At the time of its discovery, its nature was unknown. In 1970 Marie-Hélène Ulrich classified it as a quasar, objects that until 1963 were identified as radio sources of unknown and invisible origin.

TON 618 is one of the brightest quasars in the known universe. It is located at the center of a galaxy, but the galaxy is completely eclipsed by the light of this object. The heart of TON 618 is one of the largest supermassive black holes discovered by astronomers. Until recently, it was believed to be the largest black hole, but then an even bigger monster was discovered: Phoenix A, which I already told you about here last year.

Like Phoenix A, the existence and size of TON 618 defy human comprehension. Located between the constellations of Canes Venatici and Coma Berenices, 18.2 billion light-years from Earth, its mass was estimated in 2004 to be equivalent to 66 billion suns. In 2019, that estimate was reduced to a mass of 40.7 billion suns. To give an idea of ​​the dimensions of this colossal cosmic object, Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, has a mass of 4.1 million suns.

Until a few years ago, it was believed that the mass of a black hole could not exceed 50 billion suns. TON 618 would be at the limits of those estimates. Phoenix A simply obliterates them, with an estimated mass of 100 billion suns. How is it possible that cosmic objects of such enormous size exist? Science still doesn't have clear answers for that.

Two weeks ago, a new YouTube channel, NullSpace, published an excellent video talking about TON 618, with beautiful artistic recreations of what this enormous light-devouring monster might look like and explaining what its quasar is like:

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Main imagen: NullSpace.