APM 08279+5255 [SEP] constellation
APM 08279+5255
APM 08279+5255 is a very distant, broad absorption line quasar located in the constellation Lynx. It is magnified and split into multiple images by the gravitational lensing effect of a foreground galaxy through which its light passes. It appears to be a giant elliptical galaxy with a supermassive black hole and associated accretion disk. It possesses large regions of hot dust and molecular gas, as well as regions with starburst activity.
Gravitational lensing.
APM 08279+5255 was initially identified as a quasar in
are subject to substantial uncertainty. The quasar TON 618 is an example of an object with an extremely large black hole, estimated at . Its redshift is 2.219. Other examples of quasars with large estimated black hole masses are the hyperluminous quasar APM 08279+5255, with an estimated mass of , and the quasar S5 0014+81, with a mass of , or 10,000 times the mass of the black hole at the Milky Way Galactic Center.
Some galaxies, such as the galaxy 4C +37.11, appear to have two