What Is The Biggest Black Hole?
QUICK ANSWER
The largest known black hole is TON 618, an ultramassive black hole with an estimated mass of about 66 billion times the Sun. It powers a distant quasar 10 billion light-years from Earth. The biggest black holes are supermassive black holes at the centers of large galaxies, far larger than typical stellar-mass black holes.
Black holes come in vastly different sizes. The smallest known are stellar-mass black holes, just a few times the Sun's mass. The largest are ultramassive black holes containing tens of billions of solar masses, found at the centers of distant galaxies. TON 618 currently holds the record, at roughly 66 billion solar masses, though even larger ones may exist.
How big is TON 618?
About 66 billion solar masses, give or take. According to NASA, TON 618 is an ultramassive black hole powering a quasar (an extremely bright galactic center) located about 10 billion light-years from Earth. The mass is estimated indirectly from the brightness of the quasar and the speed of gas in the surrounding regions. The event horizon alone would be larger than our solar system. If you put TON 618 where the Sun is, its event horizon would extend past Pluto's orbit.
What are the different sizes of black holes?
Three main categories. Stellar-mass black holes contain 3 to 100 solar masses and form when massive stars collapse. Intermediate-mass black holes contain 100 to 100,000 solar masses, though they're harder to find and only a few have been confirmed. Supermassive black holes contain millions to billions of solar masses and sit at the centers of most large galaxies. TON 618 is in the upper end of supermassive, sometimes called ultramassive. The size differences span over 10 orders of magnitude.
What's the smallest known black hole?
Around 3 to 5 solar masses, on the boundary between black holes and neutron stars. Below about 3 solar masses, the collapsed core of a dying star becomes a neutron star instead of a black hole. The transition between the two is not perfectly understood. The smallest confirmed stellar-mass black hole, XTE J1650-500, is about 3.8 solar masses. Theoretical primordial black holes from the early universe could be much smaller (potentially the mass of a paperclip or less), but no such black holes have been confirmed yet.
Could there be bigger black holes than TON 618?
Almost certainly, but we haven't measured them. Estimating the mass of distant black holes is difficult, with uncertainties of factors of two or more. Some candidates have been proposed at over 100 billion solar masses, though the estimates are uncertain. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has found surprisingly massive black holes in the very early universe, suggesting black holes can grow large fast. The true record-holder may be lurking somewhere unmeasured. TON 618 holds the record only among well-characterized black holes.
The largest known black hole is TON 618, at about 66 billion solar masses, located 10 billion light-years from Earth. It's so massive that its event horizon would extend past Pluto's orbit if placed in our solar system. Black holes range from a few solar masses up to tens of billions, with even bigger ones likely existing but harder to measure. The variety of sizes reflects different formation paths.
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