Type

Supermassive

Location

in the constellation Virgo

Finder Chart

Distance

40 million light-years (11.7 megaparsecs)

Mass

Roughly 175 million times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter larger than the size of the asteroid belt.

Discovery Methods

• Measuring the motions of stars

NGC 4697

A ground-based telescopic view of NGC 4697.

A black-and-white image from a ground-based telescope reveals that NGC 4697 shows something of a disk shape, even though it is classified as an elliptical galaxy.

This document was last modified: November 19, 2009.