Alternate Names

NGC 4649, Arp 116

Type

Supermassive

Location

In the constellation Virgo

Distance

51 million light-years (15.6 megaparsecs)

Mass

1.6 billion to 3.4 billion times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter 6 billion-13 billion miles (10 billion-20 billion km), up to twice the diameter of Neptune's orbit around the Sun

Discovery Methods

• Measuring the motions of stars

A combined optical (blue) and X-ray (purple) image of the giant elliptical galaxy M60.

[NASA/CXC/UC Irvine/P.Humphrey et al./STScI)]

This document was last modified: August 21, 2008.