TON 618 is not just a black hole, but a superluminous quasar, at the center of which lies one of the most massive known black holes. Its precise celestial coordinates are right ascension 12h 28m 24.9s, declination +31° 28′ 38″. The object is located on the border of the constellations Canes Venatici and Coma Berenices. The light we observe today left TON 618 about 10.8 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 3 billion years old. Its redshift is z = 2.219, making it one of the most distant and ancient objects available for detailed study. TON 618's most famous feature is its central supermassive black hole. Current estimates place its mass at approximately 40.7 billion solar masses, although earlier studies have suggested values as high as 66 billion solar masses. Even by a more conservative estimate, it is one of the largest known objects of its type. The Schwarzschild radius of this black hole is approximately 1,300 astronomical units, more than 60 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto. For comparison, if TON 618's event horizon were placed at the center of the Solar System, it would engulf space far beyond the orbit of Neptune. However, we observe not the black hole itself, but the accretion disk surrounding it — a gigantic structure of gas and plasma heated to millions of degrees. As matter falls into the gravitational well, a tremendous amount of energy is released, causing the quasar to shine approximately 140 trillion times brighter than the Sun and completely outshine the galaxy in which it resides. #ton618 #blackhole #scary #astrophysics - @holvek