He also identified the presence of a compact disk of gas near the center that appeared inclined relative to the stars and that appeared to rotate faster than the stars (the mass-to-light ratio run in the center of NGC 1316 resembles that of many other giant ellipticals).

[5] Using spectroscopy of its brightest globular clusters, the merger is estimated to have occurred ~3 billion years ago.

[9] It has been proposed too that NGC 1316 may be a galaxy in evolution that eventually will become a Sombrero-like system dominated by a large bulge.

[10] Accuracy of such destinations and build of current and future galaxies and galactic formations and research methods are well established.

[5] At least two methods have been used to estimate the distance to NGC 1316: surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) in 2003[2] and planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF) in 2006.