A research team from Japan has measured the black hole at the center of the NGC 1097 barred spiral galaxy, and they have come back with a pretty big mass.

Our sun is so massive that it would take not 10, not 100, not 10,000, but a million Earths to fit inside of it. And yet, that is nothing compared to this black hole: it would take 140 million suns to equal the size of this black hole, according to a news release posted on Eureka Alert.

The research group, which was led by Kyoko Onishi of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile to observe the spiral galaxy and measure the mass of the black hole at the center of it. Understanding the massive of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) is critical to understand how a galaxy evolves, since galaxies are believed to evolve alongside SMBHs. Most galaxies in the universe have a massive black hole in the center, usually measuring several millions to tens of billions of solar masses — meaning this black hole is nowhere near the biggest.

By studying SMBH mass, scientists will be better able to understand the correlation between the SMBH and the galaxy itself. They were able to measure the mass of this black hole by using the proper motion of stars and megamasers, or objects that emit strong radio waves. Using these parameters, the scientists were able to determine the gravity of the SMBH.

Other ways to determine the mass of an SMBH is to look at the molecular gas dynamics in the central part of the galaxy. Molecular gas isn’t as affected by environmental conditions compared to stars, and therefore the measurements are more consistent.