ALMA Weighs Supermassive Black Hole at Center of Distant Spiral Galaxy

18 June, 2015 / Read time: 1 minute

In a new proof-of-concept observation, astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have measured the mass of the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 1097 -- a barred spiral galaxy located approximately 45 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Fornax.

Credit: J. Hellerman, B. Kent (NRAO/AUI/NSF); ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); K. Onishi; NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope