NGC-1277

FAIL2 

Type

Supermassive

Location

In the constellation Perseus

Distance

220 million light-years (67 megaparsecs)

Mass

17 billion times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter more than 11 times the diameter of the orbit of Neptune, the most distant planet in our solar system

Discovery Methods

This diagram shows the size of the NGC 1277 black hole, with the orbits of Neptune and Earth around the Sun at the same scale. The black hole is roughly 64 billion miles/102 billion km in diameter; light would need almost four days to traverse that distance, compared to a few minutes or hours for the orbits of the planets. [Damond Benningfield]

This document was last modified: November 28, 2012.