NGC 7001 is an

intermediate spiral galaxy An intermediate spiral galaxy is a galaxy that is in between the classifications of a barred spiral galaxy and an unbarred spiral galaxy. It is designated as SAB in the galaxy morphological classification system devised by Gerard de Vaucouleur ...

located about 300 million

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year (ly or lyr), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equal to exactly , which is approximately 9.46 trillion km or 5.88 trillion mi. As defined by the International Astr ...

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 first constellati ...

Aquarius. NGC 7001 has an estimated diameter of 123,000 light-years. It was discovered by English astronomer

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor and experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical work. ...

on July 21, 1827, and was also observed by Austrian astronomer Rudolf Spitaler on September 26, 1891. NGC 7001 has tightly wound spiral arms similar to the galaxy NGC 488. The galaxy is also host to a

supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions, of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical ...

with an estimated mass of 7 × 10⁷ M_☉.

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* * Intermediate spiral galaxies Aquarius (constellation) 7001 11663 065905 +00-53-016 Astronomical objects discovered in 1827 {{Spiral-galaxy-stub

See also

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