Type

Intermediate mass

Location

in the constellation Pisces

Finder Chart

Distance

32 million light-years

Mass

10,000 times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter about 37,000 miles (60,000 km), a bit larger than the planet Uranus

Discovery Methods

• Detection of an accretion disk

M74

M74 as seen by the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii.

A view of the galaxy M74 obtained by combining images from telescopes in Spain and the United States.

The X-ray glow of a disk of superhot gas in the galaxy M74 suggests that it encircles a black hole about 10,000 times as massive as the Sun. The orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory measured the X-ray energy from the object, which is enclosed in a box at top. Chandra's X-ray image (which shows other sources of X-rays as red dots) is superimposed on a visible-light image of the galaxy from a ground-based telescope.

This document was last modified: March 14, 2012.