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Black Holes Encyclopedia
Stats

Type

Supermassive

Location

in the constellation Virgo

Finder Chart

Distance

100 million light-years (31.6 megaparsecs)

Mass

500 million to 1.2 billion times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter range from the size of Saturn's orbit around the Sun to the size of Neptune's orbit

Discovery Methods

Images

NGC 4261

NGC 4261

An artist's concept of the view of the supermassive black hole at the core of NGC 4261 from a hypothetical planet several light-years away. The black hole is obscured by a band of dark dust, making it look red. Outside the thickest layers, the dust scatters light from the black hole, creating glowing bands of red. Bright "jets" of particles shoot away from the poles of the black hole.


NGC 4261

A disk of dark dust encircles the possible supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4261 in this 1992 view from Hubble Space Telescope. The disk, at the center of the image, spans about 800 light-years.


NGC 4261

The lines added to this HST image show the "jets" of energy that are beaming from the poles of the supermassive black hole in NGC 4261.


This document was last modified: November 19, 2009.