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Black Holes Encyclopedia
Stats

Type

Supermassive

Location

In the constellation Hydra

Distance

165 million light-years (50 megaparsecs)

Mass

31 million times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter larger than the orbit of Mercury

Discovery Methods

Images

NGC 3393

ngc3393_hst_big

A Hubble Space Telescope view of the entire galaxy, which shows a prominent S-shaped inner region.


n3393_bh

An X-ray close-up shows the two black holes, which are less than 500 light-years apart.


NGC 3393

A view of the central regions of NGC 3393 from Hubble Space Telescope. The twin black holes are located inside the bright double-lobed structure at center.


n3393_comp

This composite shows visible light, from Hubble Space Telescope, in yellow and X-rays, from Chandra X-Ray Observatory, in blue.


This document was last modified: March 14, 2012.