NGC 4697 (also known as Caldwell 52) is an elliptical galaxy some 40 to 50 million

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s away in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Virgo. It is a member of the

NGC 4697 Group The Virgo II Groups, also known as the Virgo II Cloud, Virgo Southern Extension, or the Virgo S Cloud, are a series of at least 100 galactic clusters and individual galaxies stretching approximately off the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster ...

, a group of galaxies also containing

NGC 4731 NGC 4731 is a barred spiral galaxy located near the Virgo supercluster. To its celestial south lies NGC 4731A, a small irregular galaxy. Both galaxies feature high concentrations of neutral HI gas. It is theorized that its elongated arm structur ...

and several generally much smaller galaxies This group is about 55 million light-years away; it is one of the many

Virgo II Groups The Virgo II Groups, also known as the Virgo II Cloud, Virgo Southern Extension, or the Virgo S Cloud, are a series of at least 100 galactic clusters and individual galaxies stretching approximately off the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster ...

, which form a southern extension of the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies. The distance to NGC 4697 is not known with high precision: measurements vary from 28 to 76 million light-years. According to the NASA Extra-galactic Database, the average is about 38 million light-years; according to SIMBAD, about 50 million light-years. The supermassive black hole at the core of NGC 4697 has a mass of as measured from Atacama Large Millimeter Array observations of the rotation of the central gas disk.

Gallery

NGC4697 - SDSS DR14.jpg, NGC 4697 by the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...

Caldwell 52 (50192159538).jpg, NGC 4697 from the Hubble Space Telescope.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 4697 Elliptical galaxies Virgo (constellation) 4697 052 043276 UGCA objects