Messier 85

Although it resides in the Coma Berenices constellation, Messier 85 (M85) is just one of around 2,000 galaxies in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Approximately 60 million light years away, M85 is generally considered a lenticular galaxy, which has properties of both spiral, and also elliptical galaxies.

It is interacting gravitationally with NGC 4394 (to its left in the frame) and a nearby dwarf galaxy. Although most of its 400 billion stars are very old, there is evidence of younger stars near the core of the galaxy. It is almost bereft of free hydrogen, so new star formation has all but ceased. Scientists currently think that its central core contains a black hole with a mass of more than 100 million suns, but this has only been estimated through indirect measurements.