M89

elliptical galaxy · Virgo Cluster

52.2 million light-years from Earth

Nearly round. Deep images show faint shells and long plumes of stars round it, the farthest about 190,000 light-years from its centre. In the early 1990s Hubble saw its core brighten several times over in ultraviolet light, probably gas falling into its black hole.

• 52.2 million light-years · about 78,000 light-years across
• it races through the cluster's hot gas at about 1,700 km/s

kind

galaxy

catalogue

M89 · NGC 4552

size

78,000 light-years across