No Man's Sky Black Holes: What Most People Get Wrong About Galactic Travel

You’re cruising through the Euclid Galaxy, minding your own business, when you see it. A shimmering, distorted tear in the fabric of space. It’s a No Man's Sky black hole. Your first instinct might be to steer clear because, honestly, the word "black hole" usually implies a one-way ticket to spaghetti-fication. But in Hello Games’ massive universe, these cosmic vacuum cleaners are actually your best friends—provided you know which ship parts you’re okay with losing.

They aren't just for show.

Every single one of these gravity wells is a shortcut. Think of them as the subway system of the stars. You jump in, the screen goes wonky with some of the best visual effects in the game, and you pop out thousands of light-years away. It’s chaotic. It’s fast. And if you’re trying to reach the Center of the Galaxy to reset the simulation or just to say you did it, you basically have to use them.

How Black Holes Actually Work in No Man's Sky

Most players think a black hole just spits you out in a random corner of the universe. That’s not quite right. While the exit point feels random, there’s a very specific mathematical logic to it. A black hole in No Man's Sky will always move you closer to the galactic core. Always. You might travel 1,000,000 light-years across the map, but your actual progress toward the center might only be about 5,000 to 10,000 light-years.

It’s a spiral.

Imagine the galaxy is a giant drain. You aren't falling straight down; you’re circling the rim and occasionally hopping inward. This is why some players get frustrated. They see a jump distance of 400,000 light-years and think they’ve bypassed the whole game, only to check their Galactic Map and realize they’ve only shaved off a tiny fraction of the distance to the center.

The Breakage Problem

Here is the catch. And it’s a big one. Unless you are flying a very specific type of ship or have specific upgrades, jumping through a black hole will break a piece of your technology. Usually, it’s something annoying. Your pulse drive? Broken. Your infra-knife accelerator? Offline. If you're out of resources to repair your gear, you might find yourself stranded in a system with no way to warp out until you go mining on a nearby planet.

This is why veteran explorers keep a "junker ship" in their freighter. You don't take your fully upgraded, S-class exotic ship through a black hole. That’s a rookie mistake. Instead, you summon a cheap shuttle with zero upgrades in the main inventory slots. Since there’s nothing to break, you get the distance without the repair bill.

Finding the Path: Polo and the Star Chart

You can't just find these things by squinting at the screen. Well, you can, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of a planet. The most reliable way to find a black hole is to head to the Space Anomaly. Talk to Specialist Polo. He’s the Gek who looks like he’s had a bit too much GekNip.

Polo can give you coordinates.

Once you ask him for a black hole shortcut, a purple icon will appear on your Galactic Map. It’s that easy. Alternatively, if you’ve completed the Atlas Path—one of the game’s main storylines—you gain the ability to see black holes on the map permanently. They show up as small star icons. It changes the game. Suddenly, the galaxy feels a lot smaller because you can string together jumps like a cosmic stone skipping across a pond.

The "Black Hole Suns" and Daara’s Research

The community around this game is genuinely insane in the best way possible. Groups like the Galactic Hub Project have spent years mapping these things. There was a time when players believed black holes were completely static—that "Black Hole A" would always lead to "System B."

It turns out, that’s mostly true. A specific black hole in a specific star system has a fixed exit point. This led to the creation of the Black Hole Suns project. Real players documented thousands of jumps to create a "Black Hole Daatabase." If you want to get to a specific civilization or a cool planet someone shared on Reddit, you don't just warp manually. You use a calculator. You plug in your coordinates, and the tool tells you which black holes to hit to get there in a fraction of the time.

Why Some Players Avoid Them Entirely

Not everyone loves the shortcut. There is a certain subset of the No Man's Sky community that prefers "the long way." They call themselves the manual warp purists. If you have a maxed-out freighter with a jump range of 5,000+ light-years, you can actually make progress faster than using black holes because you don't have to deal with the loading screens and the tech repairs.

Plus, black holes are one-way.

🔗 Read more: Super Power Training League Codes: Why They Are Getting Harder to Find

If you jump through one and realize you left your favorite multi-tool back in the previous system, you aren't flying back. You have to use a teleporter at a Space Station. It breaks the immersion for some. For others, the randomness of where you end up is the whole point. You might land in a system with a gorgeous "Paradise Planet" or a terrifying "Whispering Egg" infested moon that no one has ever seen before.

The Visual Evolution of the Void

It’s worth mentioning how much these things have changed since the game launched in 2016. Back then, they looked... okay. Kind of like a blurry gray marble. But after the "Origins" and "Prisms" updates, Hello Games turned them into terrifying works of art. They now feature gravitational lensing—the way light bends around the event horizon. It actually looks like something out of the movie Interstellar.

When you fly toward one, the stars behind it stretch and warp. The sound design shifts into a low, thrumming vibration that makes your controller shake. It feels dangerous. Even though we know it’s just a gameplay mechanic, that lizard brain part of your head still screams "don't go in there" every time you point your cockpit at the center of that darkness.

Advanced Tactics for the Galactic Core

If you’re serious about using black holes to reach the center, you need a strategy. Don't just jump blindly.

1. Get a Living Ship or an Interceptor. These ships have unique tech layouts. Sometimes, they handle the "breakage" mechanic differently, or their parts are easier to repair with basic materials like Carbon and Ferrite Dust rather than complex scorched components.
2. Empty your main inventory. In modern NMS, technology is mostly protected in the "Tech" slots, but older versions of the game or specific difficulty settings can still punish you. Always check your difficulty settings; you can actually turn off "Technology Damage" in the custom settings if you want the shortcut without the headache.
3. The Freighter Method. Park your freighter near a black hole. Use a small ship to jump. If you like the new system, summon your freighter to you. If you hate it, reload your restore point.

What's Next for the Void?

There are rumors in the community—mostly fueled by Sean Murray’s cryptic tweets—that black holes might get another overhaul. Some hope for "Mega-Black Holes" that could transport you between different galaxies entirely, like moving from Euclid to Eissentam without having to reach the center. Currently, that's not possible. You stay within your current galaxy.

But No Man's Sky is a game of constant evolution. What started as a simple warp mechanic has become a foundational tool for galactic cartographers and casual explorers alike. Whether you're using them to flee a pack of Sentinels or to find the edge of the universe, these anomalies remain the most mysterious and efficient way to travel the stars.

Your Actionable Checklist for Black Hole Travel

If you're ready to take the plunge, do this right now:

• Head to the Space Anomaly and talk to Polo. Grab those coordinates so you aren't flying blind.
• Switch to a "Junker Ship"—something cheap you bought at a space station—before you enter the event horizon.
• Check your Inventory. Ensure you have plenty of Repair Kits. You can buy these from Pirate Stations; they fix any broken slot regardless of the required materials.
• Look at your Galactic Map after the jump. Note your distance to the center. If the jump didn't take you closer than 5,000 light-years, it might have been a "sideways" jump. Try another one in a nearby system.
• Save your game before you enter. If you end up in a system with a dead sun or no space station, you’ll want a way back.

Stop warping the old-fashioned way. The void is calling, and it's a lot faster than your hyperdrive.