Stop what you are doing. Let your imagination strip free from the confines of your perspective. Ok, now watch this brilliant Kurzgesagt video:



TON 618 - the most massive single object in the Universe that we have ever turned our gaze towards, visible from a mind-boggling distance of 18,000,000,000 light-years away. Illuminating the depthless void with the brightness of 100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion) stars.

Imagine one singular entity with a total mass of 66,000,000,000 times our Sun, which is roughly equal to 21,978,000,000,000,000 (nearly twenty-two quadrillion) times the mass of that tiny, beautiful, blue planet we call our home. From one border of the event horizon to the opposite, you could comfortably fit ELEVEN entire Solar Systems one next to the other.

What is more - this data is around 10,000,000,000 years old due to the distance between us and TON 618. Black holes have the tendency to grow with time, the more matter they consume. Therefore, this absolute monster could, in reality, be significantly bigger right now as you're reading this.

No amount of contemplation will ever suffice in properly perceiving an object as ineffable as TON 618. You look at those numbers above and you realize you are unable to, even in the slightest, comprehend this scale. Nobody is. We are but invisible specks of dust on an endless desert. So insignificant in the grand scheme of things. So painfully unaware of our own fragility, and the futility of our struggles and hopes. Nothing but an ephemeral flicker of light that dies out as soon as it is born.

And that is precisely where the preciousness of human existence stems from. We are newborns, endlessly curious, gazing upon the mysterious, unfamiliar world around us. What is to come, we know nothing of. All we can do is keep looking and learning.

Remember friends - the gift of life is exploring the unknown. A life lived in the absence of that is a life bereft of our most precious virtue - the undying hunger for knowledge.

Love & Light