{"release":{"id":"DR1","released_on":"2026-08-21","doi":null,"url":"https://spacecatalog.org/releases#dr1"},"epoch":{"requested":"now","label":"J2026.720","julian_year":2026.72,"time":"2026-09-20T22:29:15.609Z","years_from_j2000":26.72,"frame":"date","applied":"Proper motion, then precession and nutation. The catalogued position is carried along the great circle the object's own published motion puts it on, at a constant velocity, from the epoch that position was measured at, and the result is referred to the true equator and equinox of this instant. Those are separate things: the motion moves the object, and the rotation turns the grid under it by about fifty arcseconds a year, with nutation adding up to another seventeen.","excluded":"Parallax, the radial-velocity perspective term, aberration and refraction; each is below the accuracy of the catalogued positions themselves. An object with no published proper motion comes back where the catalogue has it rather than at a fabricated zero, and says so with a null pm_ra_mas_yr. The motion runs from position_epoch_jyear where the upstream publishes one — a timed pulsar's position belongs to the year it was timed — and from J2000 where it does not. A body with no fixed position is not propagated at all — its place comes from an ephemeris, which is what /api/v1/visible answers with."},"slug":"gaia-bh3","name":"Gaia BH3","class":"stellar_mass_black_hole","category":"black_hole","object_type":"Stellar-mass black hole","mag":null,"mag_band":null,"abs_mag":null,"abs_mag_band":null,"distance_ly":1926,"distance_method":null,"ra_deg":294.82797,"dec_deg":14.93167,"epoch_ra_deg":295.136054,"epoch_dec_deg":14.992823,"epoch_moved_arcsec":null,"pm_ra_mas_yr":null,"pm_dec_mas_yr":null,"position_epoch_jyear":null,"orbits":null,"semi_major_axis_km":null,"periapsis_km":null,"mass_kg":6.502100277182627e+31,"mass_msun":32.7,"constellation":"Aquila","discovered":"2024","featured":true,"url":"https://spacecatalog.org/object/gaia-bh3","source":{"id":"curated","name":"SpaceCatalog curated data","url":"https://spacecatalog.org/releases","license":"CC-BY-4.0","attribution":null,"commercial_use":"allowed"},"radius_km":null,"radius_kind":null,"data_quality":null,"description":"The heaviest stellar-mass black hole known in the Milky Way, thirty-three Suns, found by the eleven-year wobble of an ancient halo star that carries almost no metals — a hint the black hole's progenitor star didn't either.","properties":{"accretion":"dormant","mass_solar":32.7},"designations":[{"catalog":"Common name","designation":"Gaia BH3"}],"updated_at":"2026-09-14T18:09:00.803Z","attribution":"Data from SpaceCatalog.org. Each record names its upstream in `source`, with that producer's terms in `source.license`, the acknowledgement it asks for in `source.attribution`, and whether its terms allow commercial use in `source.commercial_use`; those terms govern the record, and citing SpaceCatalog does not discharge them."}