The Eye of Talek was an astronomical object located in the Alpha Quadrant. It was the smallest black hole in the space belonging to the Cardassian Union and was believed to have been one of the oldest, which led to some mistakenly believing that it was an imploded star. The Eye dated from the formation of the universe according to the legends of the Cardassians, though cosmologists tended to agree with them. The Cardassians discovered it with telescopes long before they developed space travel. They did not know what it was at the time, and later named it after the mythological monster Talek.