We can't see black holes, so how do we know they're there?
Explore 304 real, sourced exhibits describing 846 individual black holes, found through stellar motion, X-rays, horizon-scale imaging, and gravitational waves. Every measurement keeps its uncertainty, and every 3D scene admits that it is an interpretation.
Preparing the census
Interpretive 3D model
This is a teaching model, not a direct photograph. Its visible surroundings show the kind of evidence available; its apparent size is not to scale.
Detection evidence
Why it matters
Study guide
Reviewed templates insert only this record's sourced values, so answers carry the same uncertainty as the measurements above.
The incomplete census
Mass across a seemingly impossible scale
Each dot is a sourced exhibit, with its horizontal bars showing its mass uncertainty, one-sided arrows marking limits and pointing toward the possible true mass. Distance is on a logarithmic scale because the nearest and furthest balck holes can't share a linear scale. The data table provides the same mass-distance relationship.
EstimateUncertainty interval→Lower limit; true mass lies right
Browse the filtered census as a data table
Black-hole mass and published distance data corresponding to the filtered canvas census.