How long does it take to reach the centre of a galaxy in No Man's Sky?
How many warps and black holes it takes to reach the centre of a No Man's Sky galaxy, worked out from 23 749 black hole jumps recorded by players.
How far is the centre?
A galaxy of No Man's Sky is about 820 000 light-years from its rim to its centre. Most travellers start somewhere in between, a few hundred thousand light-years out. The starting point shows on the galaxy map, with the distance to the centre.
Warping only
Your hyperdrive range grows with upgrades: about a hundred light-years at the start, around 2 000 to 3 000 light-years fully upgraded with the best modules, depending on your ship.
At 2 500 light-years per warp, in a straight line, the rim is about 330 warps from the centre. From halfway, about 165. In practice you never warp in a perfectly straight line, so count more.
With black holes
A black hole moves you closer to the centre in one jump. On the 23 749 jumps recorded on this site, half gained more than 6 200 light-years, and 99.6 % gained something. See Black holes.
Black holes sit at system number 079 of a region, so there is usually one close by. A chain goes like this: warp to the nearby black hole, jump, warp to the next one, jump. Two warps for some 6 200 light-years, against about 5 000 with two straight warps at full range.
- Early in the game, with a short range, black holes are by far the fastest road.
- With a fully upgraded hyperdrive, they are still a little ahead, and they save warp cells.
From the rim, that is about 130 black holes; from halfway, about 65.
The last stretch
Near the centre, the regions crowd around the core, and the galaxy map leads you to it. Every galaxy has a centre page on this site, with the regions closest to the core and the glyphs to reach them by portal, if you have them.
Going through the centre leads to the next galaxy, with a damaged ship: Euclid to Hilbert, Hilbert to Calypso, and so on. See the 256 galaxies and Galaxy types.
A shortcut by portal
If someone shares the address of a system near the centre, a portal takes you there at once, as long as you have the glyphs and stand in the same galaxy. See Glyphs.
Last updated: 1 November 2026