Twelve-inch and larger telescopes may also reveal a hint of the dark lane slicing through the latter's galactic plane . The unusual galactic pair of NGC 4435 and NGC 4438 lies just 20' east-northeast of M86. NGC 4435, the smaller and more northerly of the pair, is an E4 elliptical galaxy, while NGC 4438 is an edge-on Sa spiral. In photographs, the two appear to be interacting, apparently caught in a gravitational tug of war. Vague hints of spiral structure can be seen, albeit with difficulty, through telescopes as small as 8 inches in aperture, but you'll need a 14-inch or larger instrument to see this subtle detail clearly.
Careful examination shows a brighter core elongated from northeast to southwest.
This illusion arises because M89 covers only half as much sky as its neighbor. In contrast to M90's distinctly elongated disk, the E0 elliptical looks almost perfectly circular and boasts a distinct stellar nucleus. In 1918, Heber Curtis of Lick Observatory discovered a luminous jet emanating from M87's core. Later observations revealed that the galaxy also emits copious amounts of radio and x-ray radiation . In 1994 the Hubble Space Telescope indicated that all this activity stems from matter falling onto a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center.