M106

spiral galaxy · in Canes Venatici

24.7 million light-years from Earth

Water molecules swirling round its central black hole shine as natural masers. Tracking them gave its distance by pure geometry, the first such distance to a galaxy beyond our Local Group. Two extra arms of hot gas, seen in radio and X-rays, mark where jets from its black hole heat the gas in its disc.

• 24.7 million light-years, measured geometrically from its masers
• about 120,000 light-years across · a black hole of about 40 million Suns

kind

galaxy

catalogue

M106 · NGC 4258

size

122,000 light-years across