The elliptical galaxy M 49 (NGC 4472) is one of the brightest members of the Virgo Galaxy cluster.
M 49 was the first member of the Virgo cluster to be discovered by Charles Messier, who cataloged it in February of 1771. It is also the second galaxy discovered beyond the Local Group, after Lacaille's discovery of M 83. In 1779, Barnabas Oriani independently rediscovered M 49; Admiral William Smyth confused this finding with Messier's discovery and erroneously stated, "This object was discovered by Oriani in 1771." This error was repeated by John Herschel in his General Catalogue of 1864, and thus found its way into J. L. E. Dreyer's NGC.
Visually, Messier 49 is the brightest member of the Virgo Cluster, at magnitude 8.4, and rivals the more famous M 87. It has a very bright, circular 9' x 7.5' halo that contains a bright 3.5' nucleus. A 12th-magnitude star is superimposed upon the halo, near the core's eastern edge.
M 49 is at a distance of about 60 million light-years, and its apparent size corresponds to a projected major axis of 160,000 light years. Along with M 60 and M 87, M 49 is one of the giant elliptical galaxies in the Virgo cluster, of type E4 in Hubble's classification scheme. M 49 is moving away from us at about 570 miles per second.
Early estimates suggested that M 49 might be more massive than the nearby giant M 87. It is now assumed that M 87 has a higher star density, and is in fact more massive than M 49. Longer exposures show a system of about 6300 globular clusters around M 49, which is much less crowded than that of M 87.
A 13th magnitude supernova was reported in M 49 in June, 1969.