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Messier 60 or M60, also known as NGC 4649, is an elliptical galaxy approximately 57 million light-years away in the equatorial constellation of Virgo. Together with NGC 4647, it forms a pair known as Arp 116. Messier 60 and nearby elliptical galaxy Messier 59 were discovered by Johann Gottfried Koehler in April 1779, observing a comet in the same part of the sky. Charles Messier added both to his catalogue about three days after this.

Characteristics
This is an elliptical galaxy of type E1+1/2 (E1.5), although some sources class it as S0 – a lenticular galaxy. An E2 class indicates a flattening of 20%, which has a nearly round appearance. The isophotes of the galaxy are boxy in shape, rather than simple ellipses. The mass-to-light ratio is a near constant 9.5 in the V (visual) band of the UBV system. The galaxy has an effective radius of 128? (translating, at its distance, to about 10 kpc), with an estimated mass of ~1012 M? within a threefold volume, of which nearly half is dark matter. The mass estimated from X-ray emission is (1.0±0.1)×1012 M? within 5 effective radii.

Supermassive black hole
At the center of M60 is a supermassive black hole (SMBH) of 4.5±1.0 billion solar masses, one of the largest ever found. It is currently inactive. X-ray emission from the galaxy shows a cavity created by jets emitted by the hole during past active periods, which correspond to weak radio lobes. The power needed to generate these features is in the range (6–7)×1041 erg·s-1 (ergs per second).

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