Galaxy
Messier 87
Supergiant elliptical galaxy
Home of the first imaged black hole
A giant elliptical galaxy near the centre of the Virgo Cluster. In 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope released the first image of a black hole — M87*, at its core.
In your sky
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Key facts
Distance
~53 million light-years
Black hole mass
~6.5 billion × Sun
Apparent mag.
+8.6
Globular clusters
~12,000
Did you know
- A relativistic jet streams ~5,000 light-years from its core.
- It is one of the most massive galaxies in the local universe.
- The jet was first observed in 1918.
