Alternate Names

NGC 4374

Type

Supermassive

Location

in the constellation Virgo

Finder Chart

Distance

50 million light-years (18.4 megaparsecs)

Mass

Roughly 1.5 billion times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter roughly equal to the size of Neptune's orbit around the Sun, making it as big as our solar system.

Discovery Methods

• Measuring the motions of gas

M84

A view of M84 from a ground-based telescope.

An infrared view of M84.

Jets of energetic particles (pink and red) shoot into space from near the black hole in the center of M84 in this image, which combines observations from optical, radio, and X-ray telescopes. The jets heat surrounding clouds of gas (blue) to millions of degrees, preventing gas clouds from collapsing to form new stars. The jets span tens of thousands of light-years, and squirt into space at close to the speed of light.

This document was last modified: November 19, 2009.