[3] The coexistence of a circumnuclear starburst ring and an active galactic nucleus have turned NGC 7469 into a key target for studying their relation.

[4] NGC 7469 interacts with its smaller companion IC 5283, forming a pair collectively known in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 298.

In 1943, this galaxy was one of six nebulae listed by American astronomer Carl K. Seyfert that showed broad emission lines in their nuclei.

[6] Members of this class of objects became known as Seyfert galaxies, and they were noted to have a higher than normal surface brightness in their nuclei.

[7] Type 1 Seyfert galaxies are identified as having broad emission lines and being radio-quiet active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the unified scheme suggested in the 1990s.

[8][9] The most accepted theory for the energy source of AGNs is the presence of an accretion disk around a supermassive black hole.

[12] Around the black hole there is a dust torus lying at a distance of 65-87 light days, based on K-band lag times.

[15][16] The low velocity gas is a highly ionized, high-density absorber, located near the broad emission-line region.

[17] Genzel et al. detected a 1.5 arcsecond ridge of blueshifted, radially streaming gas emanating southward from the nucleus, that can also be spotted in radio waves.

[18] The intense star formation in NGC 7469 may be a result of the interaction with IC 5283 and the presence of a small bar, however it is caused by local gravitational instabilities and not non-circular motions.

Their location is marked by mid infrared and radio waves peaks, with the two brightest coinciding spatially with the ends of the nuclear molecular gas bar.

[22] Observations in the millimetre wavelengths produced a CO 2-1 map, which featured a partial ring or spiral arms at a radius of 1."5–2.

[7] In Hα imaging, a number of star producing H II regions have been observed in the north arm of NGC 7469 but none at the south one, most likely due to the interaction with IC 5283.

[26] SN 2000ft is the first radio supernova detected in the circumnuclear starburst of a luminous infrared Seyfert 1 galaxy, about 600 parsecs from its nucleus.