M49

giant elliptical galaxy · the brightest in the Virgo Cluster

54.5 million light-years from Earth

The brightest galaxy of the Virgo Cluster in starlight, outshining even M87, and the first of its galaxies ever found: Messier saw it in 1771. In 2007 one of its 7,000 globular clusters gave the first strong sign of a black hole inside a globular cluster.

• 54.5 million light-years · about 160,000 light-years across
• its black hole weighs about 2.5 billion Suns

kind

galaxy

catalogue

M49 · NGC 4472

size

162,000 light-years across