Type

Supermassive

Location

In the constellation Virgo

Finder Chart

Distance

700 million light-years

Mass

100 million times the mass of the Sun

Size

Greater than the size of the asteroid belt in our solar system

Discovery Methods

• Detection of an accretion disk

1

This series of illustrations shows a yellow star that travels too close to a giant black hole in the center of the galaxy RX J1242-11. As it nears the black hole, it's stretched and torn apart by tidal gravity. Although a small amount of material is captured by the black hole and forms a rotating disk around it, most of the gaseous debris escapes the black hole. Gas in the disk is heated to millions of degrees before it falls into the black hole, so it produces X-rays. [ESA]

This document was last modified: February 1, 2006.