Alternate Names

NGC 221

Type

Supermassive

Location

in the constellation Andromeda

Finder Chart

Distance

2.4 million light-years (0.81 megaparsecs)

Mass

3 million times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter about 10 million miles -- about 12 times the diameter of the Sun

Discovery Methods

• Measuring the motions of stars

Hubble Space Telescope image of the central region of M32, showing millions of stars packed into a region that spans only a few score light-years. [Tod R. Lauer/NASA]

This document was last modified: October 24, 2005.