I’ve spent over 300 hours exploring No Man’s Sky’s 255+ galaxies, and I used to waste entire play sessions hopping between 20-light-year jumps just to make progress toward the core. I’d grind for hyperdrive upgrades, stockpile tritium, and still feel like I was moving at a snail’s pace across the galaxy map. If you’ve ever felt the same frustration, learning how to find a black hole in No Man’s Sky will change how you play the game entirely. These cosmic anomalies cut through the fabric of space to skip thousands of light years of travel in a single warp, no high-end upgrades required.
How to Find a Black Hole in No Man’s Sky Using In-Game Tools First
You don’t need third-party resources or fancy mods to track down black holes right from your ship’s interface, as long as you know where to look. The first tool to use is your galaxy map black hole filter, which unlocks automatically after you complete the first three quests in the Atlas Path storyline. Open your galaxy map, navigate to the destination filter menu, and select the “Black Holes” option to show all valid anomalies within 3,000 light years of your current location. You’ll see a distinct dark purple icon next to eligible systems, and you can set a waypoint just like you would for a habitable planet or trading hub.
The other free in-game method is visiting Atlas Stations, the giant glowing space structures you encounter at random points along your travels. Every time you complete a small objective for an Atlas Station (usually donating a handful of common resources), you’ll get a permanent black hole waypoint added to your map, no extra work required. This is the best option for new players who haven’t unlocked the black hole filter yet, because Atlas Stations appear very early in most playthroughs. One thing to note: black hole locations you get from Atlas Stations are always in your current galaxy, so you won’t have to worry about accidentally jumping to a region you can’t access with your current hyperdrive.
Reliable Community Tools to Cut Down Search Time
If you can’t find a black hole nearby using in-game tools, or you want an anomaly that’s close to a specific landmark like a trading hub or abandoned freighter, community-run coordinate databases are your best bet. These sites are run by other No Man’s Sky players, who submit verified coordinates for black holes in every galaxy in the game. Just search for the galaxy you’re currently in, filter results by proximity to your current location, and copy the set of coordinates for the black hole you want to visit.
You’ll want to stick to verified community coordinates that have at least 10 positive confirmations from other players, to avoid wasting time on fake or outdated locations. To input the coordinates, open your galaxy map, select the “custom destination” option, and punch in the string of letters and numbers from the database. Your map will automatically pull up the exact system the black hole is in, and you can set a waypoint immediately. This method is especially useful if you’re trying to reach the center of a distant galaxy, because you can find black holes lined up directly along the path to the core to skip as much travel as possible.
You don’t have to pay for any of these coordinate databases, by the way. All the most popular ones are run by the community for free, and they’re updated regularly after every game update to make sure all locations still work. I use these tools almost every time I switch to a new galaxy, and I’ve only run into one invalid location in three years of playing.
What to Expect When You Travel Through a Black Hole
Jumping through a black hole isn’t as simple as a regular warp, and there are a few tradeoffs you need to be aware of before you take the leap. The biggest benefit, of course, is the jump range: most black holes will take you between 700 and 3,500 light years closer to the galaxy core, which is 10 to 30 times farther than a standard S-class hyperdrive jump. That means you can cut your total travel time to the galaxy center by 70% or more, even if you only use black holes for half your jumps.
The main downside is that your ship’s installed technology will take random damage during the jump. Usually only one or two upgrades in your general tech inventory will break, but it’s not unheard of for three or four to get damaged if you’re using a lot of experimental upgrades. You won’t lose any items in your cargo hold, and any upgrades stored in your cargo inventory (not installed on your ship) will stay completely intact. Before you jump through any black hole, make sure you pack these essential supplies:
- At least 50 units of Ferrite Dust and 20 units of Sodium to repair basic damaged tech immediately after the jump
- One full stack of Tritium to top off your hyperdrive if you land in a system with no stars or gas giants to refuel from
- A spare hyperdrive upgrade stored in your cargo inventory, just in case your installed hyperdrive breaks completely during the jump
Another small perk: you don’t have to bring your freighter through the black hole with you. Your freighter and all its contents will automatically follow you to your new location after the jump, and it won’t take any damage at all. That means you can leave all your extra resources and rare upgrades on your freighter without worrying about losing anything.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Hunting for Black Holes
Even experienced players make simple mistakes when searching for black holes that waste hours of time. The most common one is forgetting to toggle your black hole filter before you start scrolling through the galaxy map. If your filter is still set to “habitable systems” or “trading hubs,” black holes won’t show up at all, even if they’re right next to your current location. I still do this every few weeks, and I’ll spend 10 minutes scrolling confused before I realize I have the wrong filter turned on.
Another mistake is jumping through a black hole without checking the threat level of the destination system first. Hostile pirate-controlled regions have a 70% higher chance of spawning a pirate ambush as soon as you exit the black hole, before you even have time to repair your damaged tech. You can check the system’s threat level by hovering over it on the galaxy map before you set your waypoint, and you can avoid any systems marked as “high threat” if you don’t have strong combat upgrades on your ship. If you do accidentally jump into a high-threat system, just head straight for the nearest space station as fast as you can, and the pirates usually won’t catch you before you dock.
The last mistake to avoid is wasting nanites on black hole location maps from space station merchants. These maps cost 500 nanites on average, which is enough to buy a whole new S-class upgrade for your ship, and half the time they lead to regular star systems instead of actual black holes. You can get the exact same location information for free from Atlas Stations or community coordinate databases, so there’s no reason to spend your hard-earned nanites on these overpriced maps.
Learning how to find a black hole in No Man's Sky is one of the biggest quality of life upgrades you can unlock for your playthrough, whether you’re a new player just starting your first trip to the galaxy core or a veteran exploring the farthest outer galaxies. I now use black holes for 90% of my long-distance travel, and I’ve cut my average time to reach the galaxy center from 40 hours to under 15. If you find a particularly convenient black hole near a fully upgraded trading post or a rare resource farm, make sure to mark it as a permanent waypoint so you can come back to it whenever you need a fast jump across the galaxy.
