Alternate Names

NGC 4649, Arp 116

Type

Supermassive

Location

In the constellation Virgo

Finder Chart

Distance

51 million light-years (15.6 megaparsecs)

Mass

4.5 billion times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter 45 billion miles (27 billion km), roughly eight times the diameter of Neptune's orbit around the Sun

Discovery Methods

• Measuring the motions of stars

1

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.