M84 lies at the heart of a group of thousands of galaxies
that together form the Virgo Cluster. This map shows some of
its more prominent neighbours, each of which represents millions or billions of individual stars.
An elliptical galaxy more than forty million light years from the Earth, part
of the Virgo cluster. Its diameter
is roughly one quarter the size of our own Milky Way galaxy.
M84 in the Virgo Cluster is an elliptical galaxy of the type known
as lenticular. It has a flattened shape somewhat like that of a discus.
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